"High school kids whooped his butt really bad" - Coach Javier Mendez on Kevin Holland training at Daniel Cormier's wrestling school
Javier Mendez has revealed some home truths about when Kevin Holland trained at Daniel Cormier’s wrestling school.
In the wake of his consecutive defeats at the hands of Derek Brunson and Marvin Vettori, many questioned whether or not Kevin Holland could compete at the highest level in the middleweight division.
Of course, many of his problems came down to his inability to effectively deal with the wrestling of his opponents, which led to a parade of offers from the mixed martial arts community to help him out in that area.
Can Kevin Holland become a UFC champion?
It turns out that while Kevin Holland did spend some time with AKA, he didn’t actually take part in any wrestling drills until he spent time with Daniel Cormier at Gilroy High School - as per Javier Mendez, that is.
In a Q&A video uploaded to his Javier MendezAKAPodcast YouTube channel, Mendez elaborated on Holland's efforts to improve his wrestling.
“He said ‘hey, if I do something good, don’t give credit to AKA’ and I’m telling myself, I don’t want credit for things we don’t do! I’ve never even met the guy. He was here one time, he didn’t wrestle here, he wrestled with DC and the high school kids up in Gilroy and from what he says, the high school kids whooped his butt really bad in wrestling. So he obviously has a long way to go in wrestling.
“If he doesn’t improve the big giant hole he has, he’s gonna have some major problems. I’ve heard him speak, he has a great personality and he’s very likable, but I haven’t seen him fight! He’s very charismatic. I like him.”
A man like Javier Mendez is always going to be incredibly busy given the priorities he has at AKA, but it says a lot that he’s heard such negative things about Kevin Holland and his time wrestling with DC.
Cormier is the kind of professional you want to help you improve, so if high school kids are out there giving you the business, perhaps it’s time to rethink the strategy.
Moving forward, it should be pretty intriguing to see what the direction of travel will be for Kevin Holland in his UFC career.