Head of Xtreme Couture Eric Nicksick believes Pat Barry bares the blame for the loss Rose Namajunas suffered over the weekend.
Nicksick said that Barry wasn’t acting like a coach while cornering Namajunas, instead he was more like a ‘spouse’.
Rose met her soon-to-be husband, Pat Barry, while training at Roufus’ MMA gym. She was 14 at the time.
While Rose’s head coach is the widely respected and coveted Trevor Wittman, a lot of people throw a serious side eye toward Rose’s longtime partner and former UFC fighter and kickboxer Pat Barry.
Not only did ‘Thug Rose’ lose the belt, many UFC fans also regarded her bout as a snooze fest. The whole five rounds consisted of total 67 significant strikes and 3 takedowns (combined between her and Esparza).
Nicksick believes that Namajunas’ head coach Trevor Wittman should be the one handing out advice to her.
“I feel like Pat Berry cornered that fight like a spouse, and not her coach. Maybe that’s where you allow Trevor to take over.” Nicksick wrote on Twitter.
I feel like Pat Berry cornered that fight like a spouse, and not her coach. Maybe that’s where you allow Trevor to take over. #UFC274
— Eric Nicksick (@Eric_XCMMA) May 8, 2022
However, TSN reporter Aaron Bronsteter said Namajunas admitted that Trevor Wittman told her she had won all four rounds before the fifth round started.
“Namajunas says that Trevor Wittman told her that she had won the first four rounds heading into the fifth.” Bronsteter wrote on Twitter.
Namajunas says that Trevor Wittman told her that she had won the first four rounds heading into the fifth.
— Aaron Bronsteter (@aaronbronsteter) May 8, 2022
Similar criticism also came from UFC referee John McCarthy. During the recent episode of Weighing In, the 59-year-old also believes that Namajunas’ cornermen were too optimistic.
“One of the things that happened multiple times last night as I was watching. Cornermen need to stop telling their fighters they’re winning the rounds when you don’t know if it’s a close round.”
“You gotta say, ‘Hey, no idea whose round that is.’ Or, ‘We’re gonna have to say that we lost that because we don’t know the way the judges are gonna go.’” McCarthy said.
He added, “You can’t sit there and fall in love with what your fighter is doing based upon, ‘Damn, they look good.’ ”