Derrick Lewis weighs in on Edmond Tarverdyan ahead of Travis Browne fight

With just days to go until Derrick Lewis and Travis Browne step into the Octagon in the main event of ‘UFC Fight Night: Halifax’, talks regarding how Travis Browne will look under Edmond Tarverdyan have continued to surface.

Prior to Browne’s UFC 181 scrap with Brendan Schaub in 2014, Browne began training under Edmond Tarverdyan at the Glendale Fighting Club, where former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey trained. Browne praised Tarverdyan following the win, and has remained at GFC since. Since then, Browne has gone just 1-3 his sole win being a 3rd round TKO win over Matt Mitrione in early 2016, where Mitrione suffered once of the most disturbing eye injuries in the history of MMA. Now, with Browne training at Black House MMA part time, fight fans are wondering if Browne will look different without training exclusively under Tarverdyan.

Browne’s opponent, Derrick Lewis, spoke to Fox Sports to discuss the situation, and why Tarverdyan shouldn’t necessarily be to blame for the losses:

“I really haven’t been paying attention to him. I really just found out who Edmond [Tarverdyan] was until Ronda [Rousey] lost and everybody was blaming her coach on why she’s been losing,” Lewis told FOX Sports. “That’s when I heard who Edmond was and that maybe he was an [expletive].”

“I don’t think it has nothing to do with the coach,” Lewis explained. “Seeing that you’re a veteran and it’s not like his third or fourth fight. You have 20 fights, you should know what it takes to get yourself ready. If you don’t feel like you’re ready, you let your coach know ‘hey we need to work on a little bit more of this’. The guy’s a veteran.

“He’s been fighting at the top level for four or five years now. He should know what it takes by now to get in fight ready shape. You can’t really blame the coach.”

on 2/15/2017.