Joshua Fabia
Alarm bells started ringing when Sanchez left the famed Jackson-Wink training camp and revealed that he was only going to have one person in his corner for his next fight, an unheralded ‘self-improvement coach’ named Joshua Fabia.
On his website, Fabia calls himself “a healer and a guide,” who teaches everything from meditation to self-defense techniques, but has no background in MMA, making him a strange choice to not only coach one of the UFC’s most experienced and best known fighters, but also serve as his manager and nutritionist among various other roles.
The proof is in the pudding though and the results have been terrible as Sanchez was completely dominated from start to finish by Michael Chiesa in his next fight and then looked like a deer in the headlights as he got beaten up by Michel Pereira.
Fabia’s corner advice during these fights was laughable at best, including telling Sanchez to “be like Tyson”, “think of the shadow,” and eventually ditching the metaphors in favor of desparately yelling, “I need to see you swinging,” and “quit acting like you don’t know how to do this.”
Fabia’s coaching has been heavily criticized by the likes of Joe Rogan, Daniel Cormier, Trevor Wittman and more, but nevertheless Sanchez recently claimed he should be awarded ‘Coach Of The Year’, and joined the self-styled guru in claiming there was a smear campaign against him.
