"Something's wrong with that guy" - Alex Volkanovski won't be using Joshua Fabia as a guest coach on TUF
Alexander Volkanovski, the UFC's featherweight champion and TUF 29 head coach, has weighed in on the bizarre and controversial Joshua Fabia. Fabia has recently made headlines due to the UFC's release of his student/client Diego Sanchez.
One of the primary reasons Sanchez was released was due to Fabia demanding that the UFC hand over all of Sanchez's medical records from the past 16 years. This caused concern for the UFC as to whether Sanchez was fully fit. When asked about the matter, Fabia refused to answer.
Volkanovski was recently featured in an interview with SCMP MMA, where he was asked whether he would ever consider allowing Fabia onto TUF 29 as a guest coach.
The UFC 145lb champ stated the following:
"Aw mate. Yeah, we've definitely got a guest coming on. And I guess it's pretty obvious we've had people who've come on. So yeah, that's cool. But yeah Fabia.... I dunno man. I probably could bring him on just for a laugh but no disrespect to the guy."
Whilst Volkanovski initially attempted to avoid disparaging Fabia, his thoughts on a recent video, featuring Diego Sanchez hanging upside down whilst his coach threw strikes at his head, broke through.
"But man, it's hard not to disrespect the guy after seeing thst last video and s*** like that man. That was weird man. That was weird and intense and man, something's wrong with that guy. You know what I mean. I've always been like, I'll stay out of it but when you see s*** like that, you're like nah. He's got problems."
My coach doesn't need to hang me upside down to make me mentally strong: Volkanovski
Volkanovski was also asked whether his own coach had ever done anything similar to what he saw in the aforementioned video. He stated:
"He's done some crazy things. He's never physically harmed me. He's mentally harmed me plenty. But never physically harmed me like that. He's got different ways of making me mentally strong. Not hanging me upside down and kicking me and punching me in the head. Man, like he's sitting there asking for brain records and all that. You hear all these stories... like what is with this guy. I wanna know what's going on."
Volkanovski finished the conversation with the definitive statement that Fabia would never be on The Ultimate Fighter. He said:
"It's just very weird to me. I thought he still seemed like a pretty reasonably clever guy. Knowlegable with certain things. Maybe not martial arts but now I just think he's just.. yeah. Again, it's hard to say nice things about him after that last video. There are a few videos that are very questionable and that last one. Something's wrong. Something's terribly wrong. So he's not coming on the show. He's definitely not coming on the show."