Gillian Robertson lost in lopsided fashion on Saturday at UFC 330 after she was taken down multiple times and nearly submitted by Mackenzie Dern before ultimately losing a unanimous decision in her first title fight.
Afterwards, Robertson’s longtime coach Din Thomas went on the post-fight show and announced that he was retiring from cornering fighters and adding that he wanted to take the Canadian strawweight as far as she could go in her career — and the loss to Dern in the title fight “might be as far as she can go.” Of course, Thomas was bombarded with criticism for the timing of his announcement, especially in the aftermath of such a heartbreaking loss for Robertson.
On Monday, Thomas issued a profound apology for his actions and went as far as calling his announcement “despicable” but the damage was already done. For his part, UFC legend Matt Brown, who now serves as a full-time coach for the fighters out of his gym, didn’t want to throw Thomas under the bus for his comments but he admits it was really bad timing with how it all played out.
“I don’t know what their relationship is,” Brown said on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. “I don’t know Din that well, I’ve met him a few times. I operate differently. I’m not saying this is the right way or the wrong way or anything. I know a lot of these coaches do it on a business transaction. You pay me this amount and I’ll coach you … I’m always clear with my fighters that the relationship comes first. I’ll train you as a friend because we like hanging out together and we like working together and I’ll give you all the information that I’ve got because I want to see you succeed as a friend. When you have that kind of relationship, you stick with your person no matter what.
“I don’t know what their relationship is so it’s hard to speak on how I’d feel about it. It seemed like odd timing. I don’t know Din, but it seemed odd to make it about himself in that situation. You should just talk about the fight. You’re an analyst. Talk about the fight and what happened in the fight and leave it at that.”
One thing Brown knows for certain is that he would never do that to one of his fighters, no matter how emotional he got after a fight.
Robertson still hasn’t responded to the whole ordeal but Brown says he would never want to make a bad situation worse by quitting on one of his fighters after a particularly tough night at the office.
“I didn’t think it was really necessary. You should have saved it for later,” Brown said. “The way that he did it, I’m not a fan of. I reserve judgment for once I have all the facts and we simply don’t know what their relationship was, maybe here’s more to it than that. That’s just how I operate.”
Brown also wonders if perhaps Thomas chose his words poorly, and he was actually taking the blame for Robertson’s shortcomings in such a monumental fight.
“The other way to look at it, maybe he felt that was the best he could do and it’s his fault that she lost,” Brown said. “Maybe that’s what he meant by that. I’ve done as much as I can do, you need to get a better coach.”
That said, Brown understands that coaching at the UFC level is a difficult job, especially if you’re pouring hours upon hours into preparation and game planning but then come fight night, it all falls apart.
That may have been Thomas’ downfall on Saturday because he had to watch Robertson fall short in the biggest fight of her career. Still, Brown knows there’s a time to hash out your differences with a fighter and making that announcement on national television after the toughest loss of Robertson’s career was just an unnecessary low blow.
“Would I do it? I hope I wouldn’t,” Brown said. “If it’s one of those guys you’re just frustrated working with him, you build a game plan, you watch hours of footage, you go in the gym and you train with them and then they don’t do anything you told them to do, maybe that his little comeback on that. If you’re not going to do what I tell you to do, you got as far as you can go, I’m out.
“Coaching is a hard f*cking job. It’s selfless. It’s very easy to get negative on yourself and the fighter and the situation, the relationship — it’s very, very easy to turn this into a negative thing. I can empathize with that. Maybe that’s why I’m not as harsh on him as maybe you’re expecting. It’s such a f*cking selfless job. That’s not who I am I hope. I hope that I wouldn’t do something like that. It wasn’t in great taste.”