Duane Ludwig to live with TJ Dillashaw before next fight
Duane Ludwig became the hottest MMA trainer in 2013 as the lead coach of Urijah Faber's Team Alpha Male, however soon after he announced that he was leaving the team and Sacramento to go back to his home of Colorado and start his own gym. Faber has basically said polite versions of "good riddance," since that time, but another Team Alpha Male member is still high on Ludwig.
TJ Dillashaw is said to have improved the most under Ludwig's teaching, culminating with his historic world title win last month. Now that Dillashaw is set to rematch former champion Renan Barao, he still plans to keep Ludwig as his coach.
In order for that to happen, Ludwig will live with Dillashaw in California for two months during his camp for Barao. It may just be a temporary stop-gap in the complicated Alpha Male/Ludwig/Faber/Dillashaw situation but for now, the new champ is excited to keep his coach around.
"We actually sat down with the team yesterday and had a good meeting about it," Dillashaw recently told MMA Fighting.
"Duane’s actually going to be living with me for the next two months for my title fight. He’ll be living at my house. So I got the best of anything. I get to train at all times whenever I want. He’ll live with me for the next two months, then after that -- his academy is not officially opened yet, he doesn’t get the building until September, at the beginning of September, so it’s perfect timing for that."
As for fighting Barao again in an immediate rematch, despite the dominance and decisiveness of his first victory (and the fact that Raphael Assuncao has earned a title shot and owns a win over the champion), Dillashaw also said that he's happy to prove that lightning can strike twice for him. "I’m fine with the rematch, man, I’m stoked," he said.
"I just proved what I can do to him, so I can do it again and get paid to do it, really soon. I’m going to get paid very well to do the exact same thing to him."
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