Although he just helped his teammate defeat the highly regarded Renan Barao via stoppage for the second time, Team Alpha male member Chad Mendes “is tired of hearing” about former team head coach Duane “Bang” Ludwig.
Ludwig, who still works with UFC Bantamweight Champion T.J. Dillashaw, despite the fact that he left his position as head coach of Dillashaw’s Team Alpha Male in Sacramento, California, to return to his home in Colorado, created an issue with the team when he said that Dillashaw was the only member of Team Alpha Male that “actually wants to be champion.”
While “Bang” eventually apologized for the remark, he maintained his position that Dillashaw was different from the rest of the team, and that the only thing stopping Mendes from being a UFC champion is three simple points, three things Ludwig claims he can fix.
“I don’t know what the hell Duane is talking about,” Mendes told Ariel Helwani during Tuesday’s edition of “The MMA Hour” at MMAFighting.com. “I’m tired of hearing about Duane and him ruling our team. Duane came here to Team Alpha Male for a short amount of time, and Duane did what he did, but I’d say 95-percent of our wins when he was here we would’ve won anyway.
“Duane was the type of guy who brought a new style to our team, but we have such a unique team, everybody is such high-level athletes that anybody can come to this team with a new style, and we’re going to pick it up, we’re going to learn it and we’re going to use it in fights. So we made Duane. We put Duane on the map. Before that, Duane was a fighter who fought in the UFC who most people didn’t even know about.”
Mendes continued, “When he got the offer, he basically said it’s like coming to a garage full of Ferraris and Lamborghinis. He’s going to fine tune some things and those cars are going to run like hell. That’s basically how it was. Duane had a new system that we hadn’t seen yet and that’s why things were so fun and everyone got along. Then some crazy, weird s**t happened between him and Urijah Faber, and Duane started attacking all of us in the media.
“It just sucks. It’s something that really bummed me out because I liked Duane a lot, and I felt like him as a person, him as a coach, it was good until all of this stuff started happening, and then him taking digs at all of us. It’s just something that I’m sick of and I want out of my life. Duane’s not a part of Team Alpha Male. This is a team that I’m going to be a part of until I’m completely done fighting and probably after I’m done fighting. This is where I started, this is where I’m going to end, this is what’s made me who I am today as a fighter, and I owe everything to Team Alpha Male.
“Duane was a small, tiny, little part of that, and I just hate that so many people are assuming that Duane completely made our team. I’m just tired of hearing it.”
Check out the complete Chad Mendes interview at MMAFighting.com.
