Nicky Rodriguez was apparently supposed to fly into France to help Cyril Gane prepare for his title-fight with Jon Jones at UFC 285. While this would be far from the first time that elite grapplers have been brought in to help MMA fighters prepare for upcoming fights, it’s becoming a more popular trend in recent times. In fact, Rodriguez’s teammate and training partner Craig Jones has been working with UFC featherweight world champion Alexander Volkanovski for quite some time. Rodriguez revealed the news and explained why the plan to help Gane prepare for that fight never actually came to fruition on a recent episode of the Simple Man Podcast:
“I was supposed to go to France and train with Ciryl (Gane). But the numbers; they didn’t work out, and I had a bunch of seminars planned, and they weren’t trying to compensate me. It wasn’t necessarily Ciryl, but his manager and whatnot. If he had some proper grappling training, he definitely could’ve done a little bit better.”
Gane went on to get submitted by Jones in the very first round of their fight and it really did look like an easy night’s work for the MMA legend. Rodriguez was asked if he thought his presence in the training camp could have actually made a difference in the outcome of the fight, and he was clear in his answer:
“It would make a huge difference. It’s a matter of getting off the ground. Like if we have one goal; not get submitted, focus on defence, and focus on standing up. I think, 12 weeks? We can get that done.”
Nicky Rodriguez wasn’t alone in thinking that he could have helped Cyril Gane prepare for the Jon Jones fight at UFC 285, as Ethan Crelinsten also chimed in and explained how he thinks Rodriguez could have made effected the outcome:
“Look, I don’t think in that amount of time Cyril would have won, but it would have been a much closer fight if he got you or someone relatively his size who like a pure grappler. Odds are eventually you’re gonna attack a few guillotines, a few D’arces, you’re gonna go in front-head position a lot more than probably what he did. Because he got guillotined that quick.”
The full episode of The Simple Man Podcast where Nicky Rodriguez explains that he was supposed to train with Cyril Gane ahead of his title-fight with Jon Jones at UFC 285 was uploaded to their official YouTube channel:
