“That was the coolest part,” coach Trevor Wittman reveals what was special about his fighters’ victory at UFC 268
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Trevor Wittman
On the night of UFC 268, we were looking at historic nights of historic fights, especially at the main card. Of all the 5 winners that won in the main card, 3 of them belonged to just one man, coach Trevor Wittman. The night of November 6, 2021, in the Madison Square Garden, Wittman was most importantly responsible for cornering in the main event and the co-main event.
In the main event, Wittman was on UFC Welterweight Champion Kamaru Usman‘s team against Colby Covington and in the co-main, he was there to guide UFC Strawweight Champion Rose Namajunas going against Zhang Weili. However, in the opening of the main card by the lightweight bout between Justin Gaethje and Michael Chandler, coach Wittman was at Gaethje’s side.
That fight between Gaethje and Chandler went on to become the fight of the year by many consensuses. Each of them winning a fight meant Wittman securing 3 wins for himself and his legacy as a legendary coach. To no surprise, coach Wittman went on to become the coach of the year at the World MMA Awards 2021.
This is because not only at UFC 268, Wittman’s students won all the fights this year, case in point, Usman and Rose winning at UFC 261 as well, with Usman defending the title against Jorge Masvidal and Rose becoming the first women to become a two-time UFC champion when she knocked out Weili for the first time.
Coach Trevor Wittman explains what was the coolest part about the three wins in UFC 268
In an interview with senior reporter Mike Bohn of MMA Junkie, Trevor Wittman began talking candidly about avoiding interviews as he likes to stay low in the limelight and only wants his fighters to speak for himself, then as the questions began to pour, Wittman talked in detail about his experience into coaching the 3 winners of the night of UFC 268: Gaethje, Rose and Usman.
“The cool part about this was, we all got to go to the decision and we all had adversity that we had to overcome. That was to me was the coolest part,” said Wittman. “I mean we had Rose who knocked out Weili and then went into a five-round war and in the fifth round, it was up to the fifth round… You know Kamaru hurt Colby in the second round had to go back out and stick through it. Colby rope-a-doped us a little bit. There was so much adversity and Justin was out there eating leg kicks from Michael Chandler at the beginning of the first round,” he continued.
“So they all went through adversity, that to me, there are no better wins than that, we can go unstoppable and knock people out but to me, I like the ones where we have to make adjustments and win the championship rounds and that was a very very very cool experience for me in that aspect.”
Wittman further talked about who should be the next in line for his UFC champions. For Rose, Wittman liked the idea of fighting former strawweight champion Carla Esparza in the rematch since Rose lost the first time they fought and Wittman also finds Esparza stylistically the hardest match. For Usman, Wittman is cool in facing Leon Edwards again to help Usman fight him despite Usman winning the first fight but would love to have a new challenge on the table, such as Khamzat Chimaev.
What do you make of coach Trevor Wittman’s assessment of UFC 268? Where do you place him amongst the best coaches in the fight game? We know that Gaethje is most certainly going to fight for the lightweight title against Charles Oliveira, but who do you think is next for Rose Namajunas and Kamaru Usman?
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Abhai Singh Tanwar
(1386 Articles Published)