Diego Sanchez Details The Reason Why He Parted Ways With His Long Time Jackson Wink MMA Gym
The Ultimate Fighter (TUF 1) champion Diego Sanchez has been part of Jackson Wink MMA for many years recently exits the gym before his showdown with Michael Chiesa at UFC 239 PPV event, on July 6, 2019, from inside T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Sanchez details it was a crucial decision for him to leave because he didn’t feel real love from his trainers.
“I made a crucial decision,” Sanchez told MMAjunkie at UFC 239 media day scrum. “This is a Diego Sanchez moment. I made a crucial decision. It’s three weeks before the fight. No more JW – Jackson-Wink, one of the best teams in the world. No. I’m going in with one trainer. I’m going in with one trainer.
“People are like, ‘Wow, what the hell, Diego? What are you thinking?’ Well, I’m not only thinking, I’m feeling. That’s a big part of who Diego Sanchez is: I don’t think too much. I don’t think it’s good to think too much. I think you’ve got to feel. You’ve got to feel this – your gut. You’ve got to feel this part right here that’s inside of you.
“Nightmare” added the main reason that he wasn’t growing as a mixed martial artist due to lack of attentiveness from his coaches.
“All I know is I wasn’t learning,” he said. “I wasn’t growing as a mixed martial artist, that they were teaching me with the knowledge and information as trainers that they were doing. They were just basically going through the motions with Diego Sanchez.”
Diego Sanchez went on to criticize Greg Jackson and Mike Winkeljohn for not giving him much attention that he needed before his fights.
“For the past three years, Diego Sanchez (has) really being doing the Bruce Lee type of style training: going in early, getting my thousands of reps in and training myself,” he said. “Obviously everyone knows my grappling credentials – getting some grappling classes in and grappling rolls in. Go get my rounds in with the young bucks and do my thing in the gym.
“But come fight time, you’d get a couple mitt sessions with Winkeljohn, never really learning anything, just kind of tuning up what I already had,” he added. “With Greg Jackson, it was maybe one or two privates a camp, but never really any true love – the type of love that a trainer should have for his fighter.”
Sanchez (29-11) recently won back-to-back fights. First “The Nightmare” defeated Craig White via decision at UFC 228, then afterward beating out Mickey Gall at UFC 235.
