Sometimes catching what a cornerman has to say to his fighter between rounds can feel a little too intimate, as if a camera’s intrusion is meant to make voyeurs of us all. A famous example of this occurred back in the day when boxing’s Teddy Atlas was trying to get through to Michael Moorer during his 1994 heavyweight title fight with Evander Holyfield.
“Do you want me to fight? Huh? Do you want me to trade places with you, do you?” Atlas asked. “Listen. This guy [Holyfield] is finished. There comes a time in a man’s life when he makes a decision. To just live, survive. Or he wants to win. You’re doing just enough to keep him off you, and hope he leaves you alone. You’re lying to yourself. You’re gonna cry tomorrow because of this. Do you want to cry tomorrow? Huh?…”
There was something jarring hearing Moorer, a highly respected heavyweight with devastating punching power, being talked to as a kid. But it was a glimpse into fighter motivation. A cornerman’s relationship with his fighter can be as deep psychologically as that between a father and a son.
Or daughter.
Atlas came to mind as all this Din Thomas business has blown up over the past few days. That there’s a fine line between hard love and humiliation. Thomas the cornerman seemed to be dishing out the former when pleaded with his fighter, Gillian Robertson, to “wake the f*** up” after a lackluster first round in her strawweight title fight against Mackenzie Dern at UFC 330. He’s known Robertson since before she was old enough to drive. When he emphasized, time and again, that she needed to move her feet, you could hear his frustration in the plea.
That frustration only increased as the rounds flew by, and the deficit continued to widen.
He was so dejected that, moments after the fight, Thomas threw on a tie and dashed upstairs to return to his seat as a UFC analyst and, rather than protect his fighter in her time of need, he declared he was done with the cornering racket. When Paramount broadcaster Kate Scott asked him why, he was forthcoming with his answer.
“I told myself I would continue to do this until I took Gillian as far as she could go,” he replied. “I think that might be as far as she can go, and I am officially retiring from cornering fighters tonight. I’ve been sitting on that, and I’m telling you now. I told myself I would do this with her, and see her journey out, and take her as far as I think she can go.
“This might be as far as she can go.”
That’s where it crosses over into humiliation.
The old saying goes that one heart cannot serve two masters, which came into evidence for Thomas in Philly. The disappointed cornerman decided to make his feelings felt on the matter on the broadcast, relaying what should’ve been an intimate, respectful conversation with Robertson into a selfish declaration. He made it about himself, for an audience rather than his fighter. And in losing Robertson’s “contender” tag, he lost sight of Robertson the human being.
It's a hell of a thing for a “mentor” to do. In the lead-up to the fight, Robertson said in an interview that winning the title would a shared experience between her and Thomas, the bonded “we.” When she lost, Thomas broke free of that bond by prioritizing the all-important “I.” Disappointment can be like grief in that people deal with it differently, but what was supposed to be her moment rapidly became his own.
It’s a bad look for ol’ Din Thomas, in part because … why did we even need to know that he was done cornering in that moment? I suspect it was just an emotional response to the helplessness he felt during the bout, but perhaps — as a former fighter himself — he was protecting his own vanity. In any case, losing a fight is hard enough in the UFC, much less a title fight. Robertson was not only left to deal with the failure on her own backstage, but to also learn that Thomas saw it as just that — her failure.
The implication was that he’d done all he could for what was evident, for all to see, a lost cause.
According to Uncrowned’s Ariel Helwani, who was in touch with Robertson via text on Tuesday, she didn’t talk to Thomas on Sunday, either. In fact, she didn’t hear from him until Monday afternoon, after Thomas issued a public apology on his “Deep Waters”podcast, rather than directly to her.
Robertson rejected that apology.
“Prior to the broadcast, I didn't see any sign of what was to be said,” Robertson texted to Helwani. “After the broadcast, he had said, 'I will address this in the morning' followed by 'going live on air in 15 minutes.' He did reach out to me privately [on Monday] at 5 p.m. and then sent a voice message apologizing around 7:30 p.m., to which I have not responded due to comments he has made since the broadcast privately to my team that lead me to believe there is not much weight in the apology.”
Did Thomas, seeing the backlash for his tone-deaf actions, save this content for his podcast? If one heart can’t serve two masters, how in the hell can it serve three? To double-down on the original sin is to deepen the insult to Robertson, who is left to deal with the loss and ultimate abandonment from somebody she trusted. Thomas prioritized content ahead of his fighter, which is perhaps not as shocking as it should be in today’s age, but for a coach of solid renown, Robertson’s disappointment should easily transcend his own.
Atlas’ no-nonsense approach to coaching later became a trademark of his on-air persona at ESPN, and by that time the world knew that was exactly who he is. Teddy doesn’t sugarcoat. He had many falling-outs with fighters over the years, but he wasn’t known to give up on them.
I can remember when Thomas came to the realization that his own fighting career was coming to a close. Fighting in the LFA, he was part of an improv troupe in south Florida called Mod 27, and he’d launched a company called MMA Scouting Report with his friend, Ronaldo Delgado. He knew had taken it as far as he could.
“It was a variety of factors,” he told me back then. “And as I’m getting older, I want to do a lot more things. The window is smaller. Once you get too old … I mean, I’m starting to get gray hair. People aren’t taking me as serious as they used to.”
He was 37 years old. A dozen years later, plenty of people take him seriously. The UFC does. Those on his podcast do. Robertson, who is only 31, sure does.
Or at least did.
When you get humiliated like that after a loss, in a moment when mentors are meant to stand by your side, things have a way of turning forever tense.