Back in 2012, Urijah Faber was looking to formalize the coaching structure of Team Alpha Male, his gym that had developed a number of fighters, most notably Chad Mendes, T.J. Dillashaw, and Joseph Benavidez. Other than Thonglor “Master Thong” Armatsena, a mysterious Thai man who served as striking coach,there was little structure to anyone’s role or the practices themselves. Master Thong upped and disappeared, so Faber hired decorated kickboxer turned UFC fighter Duane “Bang” Ludwig (who had just blown out his knee) as head coach.
From there, you probably know much of the story: The Alpha Male fighters all made noticeable improvements in their striking and Ludwig was showered with praise. Dillashaw was his closest pupil, became a brilliant striker, and won the UFC Bantamweight Championship. Ludwig left when his contract ran out and started his own gym (just a martial arts gym, not a fight team) at home in Colorado. Since then, Faber and Ludwig took shots at each other in the media and it started to get a lot worst as of late.
It all came to a head yesterday, when Faber appeared on The MMA Hour and threw ut a number of accusations. Among many other things, he said:
I had a girl from Alaska who said that Duane keeps on saying these comments. And first off, Duane refused to work with any females. He said, ‘I just want to tell you, I’m not supportive of women’s MMA. I won’t be working with anybody, I won’t be working with Paige (VanZant), I’m not going to be working with Nicky, I’m not going to work with Veronica. I don’t believe in it.’ Okay. That was an issue.
[…]
The second thing was, he was saying racial things. And that’s what I’m saying when I say, things aren’t jokes just because you laughed at them, especially if they’re hurtful. So I had two of the African-American guys on our team who approached me and said, ‘this is getting real uncomfortable. It’s funny one time, I guess, when he says stuff like, all the black guys at the end of the line. But he’s saying it every single day.’ Then one guy says, ‘every single time I’m in the gym and I’m talking to a girl, Duane yells across the gym, hey, so-and-so, all black guys 25 feet away from the females.’ He says, ‘I get it, he thinks it’s funny, whatever. But he keeps doing it and it’s really getting on my nerves.
There’s a lot more, but those were the most inflammatory accusations and have gotten the most attention. A few hours later, Ludwig talked to MMAFighting, and specifically, here’s what he said about the racism and sexism allegations:
On racism and making racist “jokes”:
I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about. There’s jokes floating around the gym all the time. For him to point me out, like what the hell dude?
On training women:
I wouldn’t say I’m against women’s MMA,” Ludwig said. “I do feel uneasy seeing a woman get punched in the face. That, I don’t like. Women’s grappling and wrestling, that’s cool. But seeing a woman punched in the face, I don’t really necessarily like that. There’s awesome women’s fights, but it still makes me feel a bit weird. But yeah, I don’t like to train women.
The whole interviews include a lot more, including the financial issues between the two.
