Neil Melanson:
To be honest, and I have a bad habit of being honest, I think there was a failure in the camp a little bit with this and I think this is why the outcome was what it was. I think there was a little bit of assumption that Chael would get Anderson down a little too easy than they should have and maybe he should have wrestled more. When I got out there, not much wrestling had been done and when I took over, I put Chael back in wrestling a couple times a week and getting him back to his strength because in my opinion, I've seen this over and over and over again. That's when an athlete like Chael that has such a strong, specific strength, let's say wrestling. I've seen many wrestlers get good at striking and they start doing well, they maybe win a few fights but the fights but the fights tend to be close. They start winning decisions. They start to get comfortable and what happens is they forget what got them there in the first place which is their wrestling.
It's always good to train your weakness and you brought up Vinny for example. Vinny is such a good ground guy. He's an outstanding grappler. He wins lots of fights with some pretty badass submissions like the Magaplata he got in M-1 when he was the champion. That was pretty sweet to see in that kind of fight. I'm sure he's working on his striking but if he gets away from that ground game, if he just goes out there and boxes, he's gonna have problems. It's gonna catch up with him. Of all the athletes I work with, I remember Michael Chandler. I trained with him for his last four fights and I pleaded to him, "Learn from these guys' mistakes. You can keep getting better with your hands, that's outstanding, but don't forget what got you here and that is picking guys up, dumping them on the ground and smashing them in the face. Keep that tool sharpened."
In my opinion, I think that's what happened in the camp. Maybe it's just dumb luck. I know the coaches are very competent and they trained hard but just in my experience, any time I've seen a wrestler get away from his wrestling, it's always bit him in the ass and I think, in my opinion, that's what happened here.
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