K-1 and UFC fighter turned coach Duane “Bang” Ludwig has had a contentious relationship with Urijah Faber ever since “The California Kid” hired him as head coach of Team Alpha Male, eventually blowing up when Ludwig left to go home and start his own gym. In the last few months, there hasn’t been as much back and forth, but with Faber fighting for the last time this weekend, it was bound to come back up, and it did when MMAFighting talked to Ludwig at a media event last week.
“I think it’s time,” Ludwig said during open workouts for UFC 206. “He hasn’t really shown much improvement. But it’s not so much that he hasn’t gotten better, it’s more so his mind and his heart is going other directions rather than fighting. I think he’s being smart in doing what he needs to do, and he’s got an excellent business mind. So I think his skill set would be better utilized for the general purpose of martial arts, rather than that direction of that cage.”
Ludwig added that he when he retired, he felt more useful passing the martial arts onto younger fighters, and he opes tat Faber does the same. “My service to the world now is much more utilized as helping out the martial artists, and just people in general with martial arts, other than me being in the cage performing on the selfish journey I lived,” he explained. “And I’m a much happier person now, I look at it is giving back, in uplifting and inspiring other people. […] And I’m glad I have the skill set in order to do so.”
