There was plenty of thought put into Francis Ngannou’s second UFC title fight.
Xtreme Couture general manager and MMA coach Eric Nicksick, along with his coaching staff, had plenty to do ahead of Ngannou’s championship rematch against Stipe Miocic at Saturday’s UFC 260 main event clash in Las Vegas.
Ngannou knocked out Miocic in the second round of their heavyweight contest in the most impressive performance of his MMA career. Ngannou, who’s known for his immense knockout power, had a strong and powerful showing like he usually does, but this time it was paired with timing and patience – something “The Predator” lacked in the first fight against Miocic.
Nicksick said Ngannou’s calmness and composure at UFC 260 was no coincidence.
“That’s all by design,” Nicksick told MMA Junkie Radio. “If our corner from the walkout, from the locker room, in the corner when the fight is going on, if we are nervous and yelling and screaming and screaming and making our fighter not calm and come out of that gameplan, we’re doing ourselves a disservice.
“So we spoke about that, about how important that was. I didn’t want a bunch of guys yelling, even (Kamaru) Usman for a bit was like ‘Ahhh,’ and I was like, ‘Hey, nothing. Don’t say nothing,’ because we wanted to keep that same measured approach. If one guy starts going crazy and yelling something, then you reflect that onto your fighter, so it was very important for us to kind of remain calm and keep that our main priority.
“We had it broken down like an outline systematically on how we wanted to approach this fight. No. 1 was cage control. Get in the cage, apply dominance and keep that center of that cage, and everything fell into place as the gameplan unfolded. And that’s exactly what he did. He listened to everything we had to say, and that’s when you start seeing that snowball effect.”
Not only was Ngannou poised as he showcased his improved striking, but he also showed new tricks that weren’t present the first time he fought Miocic. This time around, “The Predator” was able to stop Miocic’s wrestling, which was a big change from the first bout.
Nicksick feels Ngannou’s improvement in the wrestling was also a key piece in his win on Saturday night.
“I have to give credit to Dennis (Davis) and Nate (Pettit) and those guys that run that wrestling room,” Nicksick said. “Those guys ran those practices, and we were able to take our gameplan, talk to the coaching staff and say, ‘Hey, this is what we’re trying to implement and how we want to improve in these areas.’ They ran practice and drills based on what we wanted to do for this fight, and you saw it first-hand.
“We didn’t want to get into this engagement of wrestling, but we also wanted him to understand what our weight felt like. If you failed in a shot, how does the weight feel when we sprawl on top of you? How do we spin out the back? But more importantly. we’re going to make your ass pay for when you come in here. You don’t get to come in here for free. So if I continue to shoot and I don’t get punished for it, I’m going to keep coming back and I’m going to continue to stick my hand in the cookie jar. But if you get hit in the mouth, you’re going to pay, and you’re going to think about coming back here again. So all of our thought process that we wanted to implement in that very first takedown, it was very important for us. It was like we’re going to stop this sh*t now, and we’re going to make you pay for it and not want to come back here again.”
To see the full interview with Nicksick, check out the video below.
