MMA Oddsbreaker’s Frank Trigg speaks with UFC on Fox 9 flyweight Demetrious Johnson as he prepares for his main event title defense this weekend (Dec. 14, 2013) against Joseph Benavidez at the Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento, California.
The AMC Pankration standout already defeated Benavidez when he initially won the UFC Flyweight Title, but he feels Benavidez would have benefited significantly if he’d been in a better training environment before their first fight:
“I think [Joseph Benavidez] has changed. He’s going out there, looks good and just being able to connect everything together. When we talked previously in the past before Duane Ludwig got there, they didn’t have a coach or anything. Sometimes, you’ve got to look at it that it’s not their fault they didn’t have a coach, it’s his fault he stayed there when there wasn’t a coach. Not that it was a bad thing. I trained at a gym that didn’t have coaches. Our coach was an Alaskan Airline pilot up in Kirkland. It came to a point when I needed to be with Matt [Hume] full-time and I made the decision to drive 45 minutes every day to train with him. That’s the difference I see.”