said this past June after staring down Harrison following her title fight win.<\/a> \u201cBecause when she got there, she started training with my coach, Mike Brown, Anderson [Franca], everybody, and I knew this fight would happen one day.<\/p>\n\u201cIf I was there now, that would be a problem. A huge problem for [American Top Team owner] Dan [Lambert]. She would have to move. Both training at the same gym, never would have happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
While he would never presume to speak for Nunes or her intentions when she left the gym, Brown always understood the split really boiled down to her loss and just seeking a change of scenery.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Amanda left more because she had the loss with Pena, and she just wasn\u2019t happy, and maybe she thought she needed changes, whatever it might be,\u201d Brown said. \u201cI don\u2019t know all the details.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know her, but I\u2019m not that close with her to know what she\u2019s thinking. But she did what\u2019s best for her. I don\u2019t know all the details, to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n
One thing that Nunes said that definitely rings true is avoiding teammates fighting each other, which would have been the case had she stayed at American Top Team. It\u2019s the only gym that Harrison has ever called home, so there\u2019s very little chance she was going to leave to avoid any opponent.<\/p>\n
Nunes left before Harrison was even in the UFC, but now there\u2019s no conflict whatsoever leading into arguably the most monumental fight in the history of women\u2019s MMA.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t like teammates fighting one another, to be honest,\u201d Brown said. \u201cI think unless it\u2019s for the No. 1 spot in the world, that\u2019s different. There\u2019s only one person who can be that guy. OK, then we have to make arrangements to make it happen. But just like a random fight to see who\u2019s No. 10 or 13, I don\u2019t like that idea. I\u2019d rather see guys try to fight other fighters. I like the gym to be a place where you go, you try to always help the guy beside you to the best of your ability. We all want to grow together and make each other better.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut if this guy could be the guy you might be fighting next, you don\u2019t want to do that. I don\u2019t like that atmosphere. For the No. 1 spot in the world, things change. If you\u2019re No. 1 and 2, like in wrestling, if you\u2019re No. 1 and 2 in the country and you\u2019re on the same wrestling team, you\u2019ve probably got to transfer. That\u2019s how it goes, or you\u2019re not going to start. That\u2019s the situation we\u2019re in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Make no mistake, Brown still has nothing but praise and admiration where Nunes is concerned, and there\u2019s no leftover animosity just because she doesn\u2019t train at American Top Team any longer.<\/p>\n
That said, the former WEC champion turned coach admits it\u2019s always special when you\u2019re with an athlete from day one, helping them learn, evolve, and grow as a fighter. Brown appreciates that Harrison has been his fighter since before she threw her first punch, so watching her win at UFC 324 is going to be that much better.<\/p>\n
\u201cKayla, since day one, since zero fights to where she is now, 100 percent with American Top Team,\u201d Brown said. \u201cObviously, she has a lifetime of judo, that doesn\u2019t hurt. It\u2019s a major part of her success, obviously.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it is a little bit sweeter that she has developed all of her mixed martial arts skills right here in South Florida at the gym, which is pretty sweet.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kayla Harrison is preparing for the biggest fight of her career when she faces Amanda Nunes in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":{"0":"post-412549","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}