MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Dewey Cooper: Francis Ngannou Out Boxed Tyson Fury | MK Interview

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

Luke Thomas sits down with Francis Ngannou's striking Coach Dewey Cooper. Dewey breaks down Tyson Fury vs. Francis Ngannou, discusses all the doubt leading up to this fight, Who hits harder Wilder or Ngannou and much more. (00:01:30) - People Doubting Francis (00:04:00) - Game planning for Tyson Fury (00:07:40) - MMA Clinching in Boxing (00:11:00) - Francis Weight for the fight (00:12:40) - Bringing MMA into Boxing (00:15:00) - Who hits harder Deontay Wilder or Francis? (00:18:00) - Francis' Fight IQ (00:20:00) - Can more MMA Fighters convert to boxing? (00:22:55) - Francis' Mindset ahead of the fight (00:25:00) - Francis' Knee (00:26:00) - Illegal Elbow (00:27:00) - Francis' Boxing Future (00:28:15) - Meeting Francis Ngannou (00:31:20) - Francis' Team Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and wherever else you listen to podcasts.     For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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the beginning or certainly a very long time and helped guide him to what can only be described as combat sports the pinnacle in many ways even though he came off of a losing effort we got a lot to talk about it is the man who has helped him be his mma striking coach and his boxing coach certainly for this contest against tyson fury it is the one and only dewey cooper hi dewey how are you what what has the mood been like since saturday hey how are you guys first of all before i answer that question i just want to say man i've been a big fan of your show for many years and i'm really honored to be on the show. Finally, I guess, better last than never. But I truly appreciate being on your show.

On the temperament of the team, we feel accomplished, but with a slightly bittersweet taste of accomplishment because we all felt like we won the fight on Saturday night and we had Saudi Arabia to come up short on the judges scorecards and um so it's bittersweet but uh deep down our hearts we know the story boxing is a business disguised as a sport and it was prevalent with the uh decision on Saturday night all right but let's talk about the good stuff first and then we'll get to some of the scoring but first things things first, you know, I don't know what the word is exactly. I mean, there was a TikTok that came out yesterday that Francis put out,

and it was like Bud Crawford and Devin Haney and Eddie Hearn and some other big names. You know, Bud Crawford knows a lot about boxing. Devin Haney knows a lot about boxing, and they didn't have any belief in Francis. Be serious for just a moment dewey how did you know that francis could compete i mean yes you knew him i suppose but like there's a certain kind of audacity that goes with that is there not yes well first of all i'm disappointed in two people and that's devin haney because i trained devin Haney as an amateur and a pro I was one of his coaches in the beginning of his career all the way to his like 14 pro fight Devin's still a dear friend of mine and we worked in the trenches together for years so he knows the way

we work so I'm disappointed in him and also Michael John White a friend of mine he's come here in Vegas and trained with me privately many times he knows what this bkss system is all about so i'm disappointed in those two because they know how hard we try how hard we grind how hard we train how hard we work on the techniques and the application and the placement and the precision so disappointed in those two um everybody else of course they would think that um first of all like i said if watch, I have receipts for everything I'm saying. If you watch any other interviews up to the fight, every interview, I was like, we're taking victory. Francis can beat him. We're going to be better after the 10 minutes or the fourth round, like most of you guys think.

He will have 10 rounds of boxing in him. And I knew it because, first of all, he worked extremely hard. He put himself in uncomfortable positions. He sparred with some really dynamic sparring partners. He did everything right this cap. He trained hard. He was dedicated. And he worked extremely hard.

And we brought in sparring partners from all over the world, South Africa, Australia, Croatia. I'm sorry, Ukraine, Italy. We brought the best of the best, 6'10", 6'9", guys in the world to spar with Francis, and they helped him get ready. Australia, they helped him really get ready, man. England, you know, we really made this camp. We did it right. And Francis was willing to let us, you know, do our thing and trust in our expertise.

And we couldn't be more proud of him. Who came up with the game plan? Is it a, you guys work together? Is it mostly you? Is it mostly the team? And also just talk to me, you know, now that the fight's over, what were you guys looking to do? What were some of the key sort of checkpoints that you wanted

to make sure that Francis had a chance? Yes, well, we all came together at a meeting at the very beginning once he realized the fight was really going to happen. We had a team meeting, and we had for hours, and we talked about different things, bounced different ideas off each other's head. So the game plan was implemented in segments. We, you know, the first four weeks we had a game plan,

the next four weeks we had a game plan, the next four weeks we had a game plan, then the final four weeks we had a game plan. Because remember, we brought in different sparring partners and each sparring partner had a certain expertise. We had a guy who had a good jab. We had a guy who was strong in the clin certain expertise we had a guy who had a good jab we had a guy who was strong in the clinch we had a guy who had power we had a guy who had speed then the last stage we had ultimate boxer type guys swaggy you know slick type boxers so every

time we brought different people in we kind of set a different game plan together it was just a unity thing us talking uh franc Francis and I talking a lot, me talking with the other coaches. It was a really unity effort, man. And like I said, man, we're happy with the result. We knew what was going to happen. We knew that Francis would actually be able to defeat Tyson Fury because we knew the mistakes Tyson made.

We knew the powers and the abilities of Francis, and we just couldn't wait to show it to the world. We honestly knew. We said it the whole time. All right, but give me some of the things that, you know, again, what were you trying to solve for with Tyson Fury? Like, what were you trying to, what did you see that you knew you had to have an answer for well anyone to tell you this Tyson Fury is like uh updated nowadays Ali type of style Muhammad Ali type of style good footwork a lot of fates a lot a lot of confidence and and but but a boxer you know a pure boxer type so in, but, but a boxer, you know, a pure boxer type. So in order to know if a boxer,

the first thing you have to do is notify that jab. If you can't stop his jab, you can't stop him. Even in the fight that we had with him, the rounds where he got his jab off, he won those rounds. So the first order was to notify his jab. After that, it was to make him realize that Francis was a better athlete,

a.k.a. better boxer than what he thought. See, all you guys judged a media workout. I mean, guys, a media workout is a media workout. You don't know what the guy did before that. You don't know if he's doing a real training session after that. He may have had sparring early that morning.

He may have sparring after the media workout. So all these so-called experts are watching the media workout and really judging us really critically when they all know it's a freaking media workout. So the main thing to defeating Tyson Fury was notifying that jab

and then making sure he don't dominate you and tire you out in the clinch. Those were the two main things, and we had to answer for those right away. Francis had the answer for the clinch being an MMA fighter, so we knew that would be no worries. Defeating that jab and having good defense and carrying that jab was really a point of emphasis, and Francis did really well in doing that.

He won on the inside. I mean, just matter-of-factly, right? Francis won on the inside. I mean, just matter of factly, right? Francis won on the inside. I was going to ask you about that. Now, obviously, Francis doesn't represent all of MMA in one fight. He represents himself. But it does look to me like with the right kind of MMA fighter going up against a boxer,

the way in which MMA utilizes and weaponizes the clinch can really service you in the carryover, right? Absolutely. That's the problem. These MMA guys who are winning the boxing didn't really utilize the clinch good enough. And then in the Conor fight, of course, I was team Mayweather at the time. I worked at his gym. I've been knowing Floyd since he was a teenager. I was trained by his uncles as my boxing coach. So of course, I was with Floyd Mayweather when he fought Conor. But Conor should have utilized the clincher a lot more, and he didn't do that. He landed the uppercut the one time he got inside in that fight, I remember.

But he just didn't utilize his attributes enough. If you're an MMA guy going against a slick boxer, you got to crowd him on the inside, rough him up a little bit, hit that body, and make him uncomfortable. The great thing that Francis did in this fight against Tyson, he made Tyson feel uncomfortable. We're all human. Once we get uncomfortable, we'll start doubting what we do. We can't be free flowing if we're uncomfortable. And that was the key to the fight. One of the things that Tyson noted, which you do see on tape, is the kind of like interesting pressure that Francis was applying, where he was the one kind of in the center of the ring and Tyson was for the most part circling. So there was like this incremental pressure, but he was still always a double jab away.

And he was kind of waiting for Tyson to come to him. Tyson sort of said this was that really tripped me up. He was not prepared for that. Why is that give and take? Why do you think that give and take was so difficult for him? Because Tyson has his hands out of position when he boxes. He gets away with being the taller, longer, faster, slicker guy. But when he throws his punches, his hands are a lot of times out of position.

And when you throw punches and your hands are out of position, you are enabling yourself to be counter-struck. And so once he started getting hit uncomfortably as he was throwing that backfist jab, it made him get different. He honestly thought Francis was going to come out there per swing for two rounds and get tired. And many people thought that. You wouldn't believe how many interviews I did personally

where guys said I give them 10 minutes or less to get it done. That's the most disrespectful thing you could say to any fighter or any coach. If it's a 10 round fight, we're going to prepare our guy for a 10 round fight. Regardless of what he's done in the past, regardless of he knocks everyone out in the first round, we're always going to have our guy ready for 10 rounds, man. So it was ridiculous to think we would have Francis Ngannou ready for a third of what he needed to be ready for. 10 minutes was a 30-minute fight. 10 minutes does us no good. So people just disrespected the game. They discredited us, and they really totally discredited Francis. Luke, think about this. In Francis' last two fights, think about the things he's done. He fought 25 minutes on one leg

and then he fought his first fight against the best heavyweight boxer in the world 30 straight minutes. And this guy's known for not having cardio. It's ridiculous. He had one fight where he gassed out. That was the first Stipe fight. I was in that corner that night.

That's one fight out of 21 fights, and he's the guy with no cardio. It's just ridiculous to me how people judge people off one occasion. I was going to say, though, what was kind of interesting, and for folks who may not know this, there's really not in the same way that MMA has one. There's not really a super heavyweight in boxing. I mean, there is, but it's very, very different. So Francis came in at 272, and he looked to be in tremendous shape how intentional

was 272 what weight were you guys trying to let him settle at well it was definitely whatever weight he came in we didn't want him to get too small because we knew once the jab was notified nullified tyson would go to that dirty boxing clinch mode thing he does. Lean on your head, push on you, frustrate you, do that elite trash talking, your eardrum trying to make you mad. You know, all the psychological mind games he plays, which are good

things. That's why he's a champion. We knew those things would be prevalent. So we didn't want Francis to get too light. We wanted him to have some backbone and be strong in those clinches too. But if his weight would have went down to 265, we'd have been cool with that. But the emphasis wasn't to drop weight.

It was to have a performance body no matter where you're at. If you're at 275 or 265, we want you strong and explosive and keeping your footwork in position and that's the one thing i have to salute him with he kept his footwork really well and that's why he was able to land punches on tyson fury and the loop punches that tyson fury threw tyson fury threw a few really good right hands and francis got under him i was really proud of that because in the gym he wasn't getting under a lot of those right hands he was just catching them but in the fight he felt good he started getting low and and really mixing it up really well in the fight and it was just great to see and the stance switch that goes back to

making Tyson uncomfortable right here's a guy spending at a weird range in an unusual stance it just kind of made Tyson question himself, right? Yes, and Francis does that all the time in his MMA training. We switch stance all the time. And so, yeah, we wanted to still bring an MMA ingredient to the boxing ring. That's why he threw the Superman punch at the end. That's why he was switching stances. And Francis is actually pretty good from his softball stance. He's really good from that stance.

So, yeah, we just wanted him to show his weapons, show his athletic ability. And people really underestimate the character of the fighter. You know, you guys know the upbringing. You guys know the struggles. You guys know the homelessness. You guys know the things he's been through, being disrespected by his last company, the fans turning on him, saying he fumbled the bag, all these different things that he's went through in the last year and a half.

Man, people should have expected a monster to really show himself because he's been holding all this anger in, all this disappointment, all these doubters in he was able to express it on Saturday night and by the way last thing everyone's talking about oh Tyson had a bad night he hasn't fought in in almost a year Francis had not fought in almost two years stop making excuses the reason why Tyson looked the way he looked was because of the opposition he was facing in Francis Ngannou do you think Francis would look better with a second – not Francis.

Well, Francis would look better. Look, wouldn't you agree, though, that both guys could look even better the second time around if they did it a second time? Absolutely. And, you know, why shouldn't it happen? You know, I really think it needs to happen. Of course, that's on the business, guys.

I'm only the coach. They give me a name. We devised a plan to defeat them. Uh, so I'm not involved in that at all, but as a fan, absolutely. Because I felt, I felt like we got kind of the fight stolen from us. So of course a rematch will be fantastic because of course Tyson is going to put up, put up a better effort. We expected it. He's a true champion. And I'm sure Saturday night was the first time he tasted defeat at the tip of his tongue, but he didn't have to swallow it. He just got the taste of it on the tip of his tongue.

In a rematch, we're going to make him swallow that bittersweet pill of defeat. Francis will be much better. And I know he can defeat Tyson Fury. I just know he can. Now, what I'm going to ask you is a guess, because we don't know. But just from what you know about boxing and what you know about Francis, how do you think his power compares to Deontay Wilder's in boxing? Well, we don't know.

Deontay is a different body type for heavyweight. He would be like a Tommy Hearns in the heavyweight division, a slender dude with crazy ass punch and power. You know what I mean? But he throws it so reckless. So it's either a reward or, you know, not. I think Francis had a little more control on his power. So it's hard to say.

In a perfect world, it's been recorded. Tyson Fury should go hit the, I'm sorry, Deontay Wallace should go hit the, I'm sorry, Deontay Wilder should go hit the power cue so we can see. But right now, since we have to go by records, Francis is the harder puncher. I would say he's the harder puncher

because he's heavier. If he throws it full power and lands it cleanly, you know, it's definitely as devastating as Deontay Wilder's, if not more. In this fight with Tyson Fury,

we want him to be more precision than power. We were actually telling him in the corner, take a little bit off because it's his first 10-round fight. I don't know about you guys or people understand how insane it is.

I got 25 pro boxing fights. My first six boxing fights were four rounders um i used to be a good fighter especially my prime before my four knee surgeries me at my best i couldn't imagine my first boxing fight fighting the best guy about to finish in a 10 round fight i don't think anyone can roy jones holy phil even mike tyson himself ali after winning Anyway, kid. Roy Jones, Holyfield, even Mike Tyson himself. Ali, after winning the Olympic gold medal, didn't even do something like this, guys. This has never been done. You know, Conor did it, but he got stopped in what, the ninth round or something?

Ninth or tenth, yeah. Yeah, you know what I mean? Think about that. And by the way, people saying this is like Conor and Floyd. I want to get a real quick point. Conor was the younger guy. Floyd was out of his prime. Conor was the younger guy. Floyd was out of his prime. Conor was the bigger guy.

You know what I mean? So Conor had two or three advantages on his side of the coin. If you spread it out on a spreadsheet. Younger in his prime, bigger. Supposedly stronger. Floyd's out of his prime, 40, 41 years old. Smaller guy, etc. In this fight,

Francis was the older guy, least experienced guy, you know, fighting the smaller guy. I mean, how many advantages did Tyson Fury have over us on paper? That's why everyone thought it was going to be a wash. But people got to remember the character of the man is very important and what's inside you and that determination and that grit and and that's what francis showed he showed it all through training camp and it came out fight night you know it's something that kind of occurred to me when we were watching this fight because again i'll be honest you know i didn't know that he had it in him but here we are just talking about how he had it in him um francis is a quick learner is he not i mean he's 37 he's a heavyweight. Francis is a quick learner, is he not?

I mean, he's 37, he's a heavyweight, he's obviously a freak athlete in certain ways. But more than that, he seems to be able to pick up important fundamentals of technique and build on them pretty quickly relative to other fighters I've seen. Would you agree with that assessment? Absolutely, absolutely, because he's athletic and he doesn't have an ego about training. See, a lot of guys, when they get to a certain level,

they actually have an ego. And whether they know it or not, they turn off their coach's input. They turn off those little angles and those intricate details that the coach says, hey, bring that hand back. Recall that punch. Extend that punch. First two knuckles. All these simple things that they're not doing. Their ego gets in the way and they won't do it in training because they're already the man. They already been doing this. They already accomplished. Francis is just a student. He gets in the gym and if he respects you, he tells you, train me. He does what you say and he works out very hard and he's willing to listen, man.

You know, he's really cool in the gym to work with because he's always pushing for extra rounds or two. When we say, okay, Francis, that's enough, he says, oh, let me do two more. He'll get two more rounds in. And that's a great attribute. Sometimes it's not because you have to spar the next day. We don't want you to feel tired the next day. So there's a system in place.

It's not always good doing more, but he always wants to do more. He's a very studious guy in the gym, man. I wish people could really see his personality in the gym, man. He's really a cool, cool dude, man. I'm not sure what people think of him, but he's a nice guy and he really wants to absorb knowledge in the gym. And he'll ask you questions because half the time he knows the answer testing testing you to see if you know uh and so you know i've been doing this shit for 40 years so i passed all the tests between us too so you trust me a little bit now i want to come back to francis but i think it's important to ask this one right like on the one hand i mean you know the score right basically most people uh

just didn't think not only that francis couldn't do it but that an mma fighter couldn't do it so then it gets to the question it's like okay is what happened on saturday something that francis can do or based on what you know about striking and mma and boxing in your in your long career are we all wrong in that, not that the boxers aren't better in general, of course they're going to be better, right? That makes sense in boxing. But that maybe we underestimated

how good MMA fighters could do, or is it just because, well, Francis is a unicorn and it's just a Francis thing? Which is it? Well, to be honest, I would love to say it's the application and for guys willing to learn, but it's kind of the enigma that Francis is too. Because remember, Francis got hit a few times too.

That illegal elbow in the seventh round, for instance. I'm not sure how that didn't hurt him. You know, I don't even know. He's a cyborg sent back in time to warn us about the future. Yes, but so most guys get hit with that. If they go down, the referee's not going to show love and say it was an illegal elbow. That's a knockdown.

You know what I mean? Who knows what happens? So I think it's more of Francis being an enigma than just any MMA guy can get in there and box with a world champion boxer. Because a world champion boxer is a rare boxer. There's a lot of guys that box, but these legitimate pound for pound guys, these legitimate top of their weight class guys are awesome and they're experts at what they do. So I would say any good MMA fighter could get in there and compete with them like Francis did.

Francis is an enigma, man. He's a strong dude who's heard no his whole life and who refuses to fall victim to hearing no. And he says yes in his mind and he just pushes through. And then he got people who actually love him him who's willing to help him and do whatever they have to do to help him and man our team is really solid man so um i think that's what it is though it's francis i would love to say it's anything else it's just francis man he's different he's built different i mean i love volkanovski i love holloway they're just two of the greatest fives i've ever seen but they're not beating Bud Crawford, right?

Like, that's just not, that's not in the cards. No, and by the way, Benoit Hopkins, I love you. I was an executioner for Benoit Hopkins back in the days. I was one of the guys who had the mask on with the axe for his championship fight against Edgwun Echols too. B-Hop,

you know how we do. One of the things you said on Joe Rogan was out of line, man. Every fighter has a chance, B-Hop, you know how we do. One of the things you said on Joe Rogan was out of line, man. Every fighter has a chance, B-Hop. I'm disappointed in what you said, B-Hop. I hope he hears it. You know what? You mentioned getting some fuel because, God, you know, listen, we definitely get cards on the table.

We didn't think he was going to win on Saturday, but we've been very supportive of Francis carving his own destiny, carving his own destiny carving his own path and and you know it's great to see that but you're right there were so many people in the community who turned on him these other promoters coming out of the woodwork saying he was pricing himself out all this nonsense did that ever negatively impact him in training no no you know it meant negatively negatively impacted us you know we were feeling so come with some kind of way about the um the discriminatory things that were that people were saying about francis but he didn't he was just like it's okay my whole life i've been like this i'm gonna show him i'm gonna prove wrong. And when he really got an attitude, he would say, I'm going to prove the motherfuckers wrong.

But that was all he had to say. Everything else, he didn't care. He used it as fuel, but it wasn't like a negative thing to him. He's like, I will show them. And he said, guys, my whole life has been like this. I've been down it since I was a little kid. I'm going to show them this is why I'm working so hard. And, you know, it was inspiring because we're American, man. We get emotional about scrutiny and all of that. He just dusted it off, man. He just,

he just dusted it off and kept focusing on what he wants to focus on. Because he told me one thing one day, he said, if it all is today, I'm good. We're going back to Africa and forming my land and living a good life no matter what. I'm good. And so everything else is a bonus to him. Everything else is like, you know, now he's not carrying the cross. There's no pressure because he knows what he's going to do and he simply does it. One thing that's getting lost in all of this conversation is, you know,

Francis was not just gone for two years. He had a pretty, you know, big knee surgery in the middle. You know, obviously this wasn't an MMA bout where he's level changing and stuff like that, but your knee needs to be under to compete against Tyson Fury. So it looks like the knee rehab went well. What is your sense of the recovery he had? Incredible. It is a hundred 100%. It went well. We definitely tested his knee doing jumps and one-legged squats and lateral movement drills and sprinting up hills.

Trip Held, the conditioning coach, definitely put him through rigorous training to make sure the knee would hold up and was strong. And we did a lot of things with Francis, man. Athletically, he's on point. knee would would hold up and was strong and we did a lot of things with francis man athletically he's on point if francis were an american there would be no francis the gun who fighter he'd be in the nfl right now right now making multi-millions man he's a football player if he was american for sure yeah i can feel that um okay the elbow you mentioned that that tyson fury through now i went back and i watched that on tape and in that particular sequence it's not like you know it's not like francis was doing the

peekaboo style side to side his head was coming pretty straight at least in that moment and then the elbow kind of comes over the corner like that seems pretty intentional to me i don't i can't prove it but it seemed intentional to me did it seem intentional to you 100 100 and and it that's just that shows the frustration uh you know when when things aren't going as as easy or as as cool as you thought these type of things happen it was a mark of frustration i'm disappointed the referee didn't even say anything or or penalize him for it because that really made a difference, would have made a difference in the fight. I still have friends winning rounds two, three, four, eight, seven, eight. No, no, no.

Two, three, four, eight, ten. Seven was close. With the elbow, you penalize him for the three, four, eight, ten. Seven was close. With the elbow, you penalize him for the elbow. We win that round, too. But I had him winning five to six rounds, and with the knockdown, we got it. So it should have been 96-94 or 95-94 for us. You think Francis fights MMA in 2024? He said he's going to do both.

So we'll wait and see. Actually me actually let me let me ask this coach let me ask this if i may so you're just a coach right that's that you're not on the business side of it they come to you they say a name and you got a job to do however however if they did come to you and they say hey who do you think francis matches up well with the most in heavyweight boxing? The answer is any of them, because we're going to devise a plan and be ready. But I definitely love an Anthony Joshua fight. I definitely love that fight. And, you know, Deontay Wilder, that's a good fight also.

But honestly, real champions see no faces. They're willing to fight whomever, because they believe in themselves, they believe in their abilities, and they know they can make the adjustment to defeat anyone. That's what this Tyson Fury fight was about, to show the world that Francis Ngannou can make the adjustment to defeat anyone. And we felt like we accomplished that task.

Unfortunately, two people felt like we didn't, and those were those two judges all right let me ask you about you if i may and as it relates to francis which is you've been working with him since he came to the united states what's the story there um how did you get hooked up with francis um crazy forrest griffin called me before he uh came from france and and he said, hey, hey, Dewey, I got this heavyweight coming who needs a striking coach. He's boxer heavy. He likes to box. So I thought of you. Would you be interested? And he told me his name. You know, I didn't know him at the time. I said, absolutely, man. Thanks, Forrest. Thanks for the plug.

Then Stephen Bonner, you know, Forrest Griffin's immortal friend slash adversary called me and said hey I got this guy coming to Vegas man I told him he should train with you so I'm thinking Forrest Griffin and rest in peace Stephen Butter both

were feeling like I was the guy to train Francis and Gunnel so he came to the US heS. He met me at the TMT Boxing Club for the first time and we've been rocking out ever since. I must admit it was definitely an odd meeting because back then his English wasn't anywhere as good as

it is now. So he had a French slash African accent. I couldn't understand a word he was saying. So it was very uncomfortable. But we made it through and we started training at the uscpi and we trained ever since what was your first holy shit and moment with him when you realized okay this one might be a little bit different yeah the the first day we trained yeah he was so goddamn strong what happened just just hitting the pads doing things not conventionally right

hitting the pads with any part of his hand it was still hard and crazy power i realized right then like this dude is different by the way his knees are harder than his punches i mean his knees are crushing his kicks were strong because we kicked the kneed and punched and I was like this is a big strong dude and I just knew he was going to knock out everyone he fought he just needed to get used to more of a system not just

you know doing whatever more of a technical precision type style and we knew he was going to be awesome man before Robert Farliss passed away I was we knew he was going to be awesome, man. Before Robert's fall has passed away, I was talking to Francis about going to Coutures because they had a great wrestling program. Because at the time, we were only training at the UFC PR.

Then he decided to train at Syndicate for his crown and all of that stuff. And that was the beginning. But he eventually got to Extreme Coutures and the rest is history. But yeah, I knew Francis was going to be something special because he was a big, strong, athletic guy. People disassociate how technical he is.

He can do jump spin kicks and really, really agile stuff, too, that people don't realize he can do. So he's not some big brute. He's light at foot when he wants to be. And so I knew he was going to be awesome at UFC. I knew he was going to be a UFC heavyweight champ. I said two years before he won the title, before the first sleep-aid fight, after the sleep-aid fight, the first one, I said he'll be champ soon enough.

And it happened. Yeah, it certainly did. And then for this particular camp, you know what kind of stands out to me? I mean, this has been true before, but you just get reminded of it in an interesting moment like this you know francis is obviously a bit of a unicorn he's a special guy okay fair enough but you you and the other people on that team you know there there's a lot that goes into making francis successful and foremost is francis but then after that, you do have to recognize the team. I wonder if you can give me a sense about why it works,

because if there's any dysfunction in the team, it will lower the performance of the, of the athlete. Like everyone has to do their role and everything has to kind of interconnect. Tell me why the team works as well as it does. Well, because there's no et tu Brute. There's no deceit. There's no disloyalty. There's no deceit. There's no disloyalty. There's no dishonesty. We all know our roles.

We accept those roles. And we do the best we can at that. And we're willing to talk to each other and compromise and really itemize the training for Francis' benefit. A lot of times, you know how the MMA world goes. The wrestling coach wants you to do this. The wrestling coach wants you to do this. The striking coach wants you to do this. Conditioning coach got you doing too much where you can't do the wrestling or the striking. There's no parity. There's no unity. So you're pulling the fighter in several different ways. We have cohesiveness. We have a community. We

have a family. Eric Nixick and i've been friends for many years way before this we worked ray seth was corner back in the wfa or whatever the hell it was called when ray seth was the president and fought on his own show in california so eric and i go way back we've been friends forever and all the guys markel and i've been friends forever all the guys in the team are a close-knit group whether francis was involved or not so we have a trust a loyalty and an honesty to each other and so that makes it easy to help the fighter because if i if i need help in something or if i did something wrong the guy hey what about this and same thing we could talk to each other and really the divides a plan that's

beneficial for the fighter and that's the most important thing as you know in the sport of boxing it's normally one coach in mma is two to three coaches people forget about how those personalities have to mix well otherwise the fighter will be the one who who uh gets it wrongly influenced so and i as far as our team, we're sharp. We got love for one another. We respect one another. Our main goal is for Francis' improvement every time we train, every week we train.

And by the way, Francis hit so many milestones in this camp, you know, sparring 10 rounds for the first time and boxing and three, four different sparring partners and stuff like this, man. It was awesome to see, guys. We have so many great memories from this training camp. I will honestly never forget. Remember my fighter, Jesse Vargas fought many Pacquiao. We were the champions.

I had a Pacquiao fight. I know the highest level of this sport. My fighter fought Benora Hopkins, Bebo Shumanoff on Showtime. You know, the Pacquiao fight was on HBO. I know the highest level of the sport, but there was nothing as special as this camp, and there was nothing

that even comes close, not even the Pacquiao fight, to what happened in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia last Saturday night. It was magnificent, spectacular. It was unexplainable how great this show was. And it was something I'll never forget as long as I live.

This is my fight memory, including my fights. I had Muhammad Ali come watch me fight. And this fight surpasses that because it was just so spectacular, man. It was crazy. I'll never forget it. Unlike anything, I mean, I've been watching combat sports a long time. We were talking about it on the Monday after. It's like, I don't know what to compare this to.

It sort of stands out by itself, right? It's sort of singularly this completely to us out of nowhere achievement. And it proved a lot. I'll tell you what it did prove. Finally got you on our show here. Dewey, I have to say, I am so sorry it took this long for us to get you up here, but I am so appreciative that you made some time, and I can't say it enough.

Congratulations to you. You had a great career as a fighter, and I'm glad you're getting your flowers as a coach as well. Job well done, man. Job well done. Thank you. Thank you. And, man, it wouldn't be possible without having Francis Ngannou.

So, a big thanks to Francis. Man, we went through some bad times that that first loss. People criticize me for putting dry towels on Francis Ngannou. I'll never forget that. I received death threats and all kind of criticism online. Guys, there were wet towels. They were soaked in cold as water we're not stupid we never put hot towels on fire they were cold towels but to go from that to did defeating steve bay later getting that that that's you know championship and to do what we did last you know saturday four or five days ago it's just full circle, man. Never give up on yourself. Always believe in yourself when everyone else does it.

Francis has proved that to us. I'm a living testament of it. And I'm thankful. We're going to stay humble, keep working hard, and we will improve. If improvement is possible, perfection is not good enough. We're going to keep improving and we're going to stay humble and keep working hard. I assure you that.

I can't wait to see what you guys have cooked up next. Blow my mind again. I'm sure you will. Dewey Cooper, Coach Extraordinaire. Thank you so much. Love you guys. Thanks for having me, man. Appreciate you.