Although Robert Drysdale took much of the heat for his role in Max Rohskopf’s controversial UFC debut, he wasn’t the only one in the corner that night at UFC on ESPN 11.
Dewey Cooper, who serves as one of the main coaches at Zenith MMA Team in Las Vegas alongside Drysdale, was there, too. He said he supports every action that was made and views the backlash to the corner interaction between Drysdale and Rohskopf as “over exaggerated” and “crazy.”
“I was in the corner, and I was the one warming him up as Max is our guy,” Cooper told MMA Junkie. “I didn’t think anything was wrong with what transpired in the corner. I didn’t think anything was wrong with what transpired in the fight. We took the fight on five days’ notice, and it just didn’t go our way. If it weren’t for the coronavirus there would’ve been two coaches in the cage, and it would’ve been Robert and I, and I would have agreed with Robert 100 percent and been saying the same type of sentiments.”
The sequence that led to Rohskopf pleading for his corner to stop the fight against Austin Hubbard after two rounds led to a greater debate on the role of coaches and cornermen. Drysdale has said in multiple interviews since the June 20 contest that he does not think he did anything wrong and felt capable in his ability to lift Rohskopf’s spirits and get him back into the fight.
Drysdale said if he truly believed Rohskopf to be in grave danger, he would have ended the contest instantly. However, he thought he could bring back Rohskopf from a vulnerable spot, even if it didn’t end up working out.
Some have argued that Drysdale didn’t sensibly look out for the safety of his fighter, but Cooper said he completely disagrees. He thinks the public has a false perception of what the role of the cornerman is, and although it might be somewhat polarizing, he said his obligation is to winning and not safety.
“I’m glad I have a platform just to say this: Everyone is saying the No. 1 responsibility for the coach is the fighter’s protection, and I’ll be the first to say I totally disagree with that,” Cooper said. “I’ve been fighting for 36 years. I’ve got as much experience as anyone in the world. I have as many fights combined – more than 75 percent of the guys in the world – under my experience. I think the only responsibility for a coach is to try his best to propel his fighter to victory. That’s the No. 1 thing we’re there for, and that’s in training camp and in the fight. The responsibility of the ringside doctor and the referee is the fighter’s safety. I think everyone has this confused.
“The coach’s No. 1 responsibility is to propel his fighter to victory and make his fighter better than they were before. 1B would the fighter’s safety; 1A is victory. If you truly feel your fighter can keep going, or you don’t feel your fighter has taken a lot of damage, you should definitely motivate him to keep fighting. There was not a lot of damage in the fight, it was not as severe as the fights it was compared to. I think the whole thing was blown out of proportion.”
Cooper said these types of situations will never be black and white. There are countless variables that go into each fight, and as much as its falls on the athletes, the people outside of the octagon definitely play a role, too.
What works for some fighters may not apply to others. Given what he knows about Rohskopf and has seen from the 25-year-old, Cooper doesn’t think Drysdale did wrong by his fighter and certainly isn’t deserving of all the criticism he’s received.
Cooper said he completely agrees that situations exist where coaches need to take action into their own hands. With the amount of time he’s spent in combat sports, he thinks he’s got a firm understanding on where the line falls, and he didn’t see Rohskopf as someone who needed saving in that moment.
“You base (stopping a fight) on the type of toughness your fighter has,” Cooper said. “You’ve seen them punched, kicked, taken down, tapped out, submitted, and everything in training. You know what type of pain threshold he or she has. You know what type of heart and mind state they have. There’s so many layers to it, but to answer it simply: damage. We can see the difference in a guy being a little exhausted and losing a fight vs. a guy being outclassed and beat the hell up with no chance of winning the fight.
“If your fighter it taking undeniable damage against a person you know has power, aggressiveness and ain’t going to stop, these are the type of intangibles you put into the decision-making of stopping a fight.”
Cooper, who also works alongside UFC notables such as Francis Ngannou and Kevin Lee, said he hopes to see Rohskopf get another UFC opportunity where he can show his body of work on a full training camp.
Coach Dewey Cooper: 'I totally disagree' with notion UFC corners should put fighter safety first
