Joseph Benavidez: ‘Team Alpha Male Never Pulls Out Of Fights’

MMA is a sport that pits two individuals against each other where only one man can walk out victorious. It’s unlike any team sport because if a combatant suffers a serious injury, the match is scrapped entirely. It doesn’t matter if it’s Jose Aldo, Khabib Nurmagomedov, or Anthony Pettis; Fans are learning not to get excited for fights until they’re actually in the octagon.

In a sport plagued by injuries, one camp seems to have figured out the secret to training hard while remaining injury-free. Team Alpha Male currently has the lowest injury rate out of all of the major MMA camps in the world. UFC flyweight Joe Benavidez explained to BJPENN.COM how the camp trains hard and elevates each other’s games while staying safe.

“We never pull out of fights and there’s a reason for that,” Benavidez told BJPENN.COM. “We go in and we spar hard, but we take care of each other while we’re sparring because we care about each other and that goes a long way in this sport. You’re in there alone so when you have that support system, it’s just incredible.”

Benavidez insists that the members of Team Alpha Male aren’t only in the gym to improve themselves, but to also prepare their teammates for their next fight. “It’s to try to get the other guy ready,” Benavidez stated. “It’s not like, ‘Oh, I’m just gonna try to beat up [Urijah Faber] or [TJ Dillashaw] or whatever.’ It’s always to help someone that has a fight coming up and that has a lot to do with our success. No one’s in there taking cheap shots and trying to beat each other.”

Whatever Team Alpha Male is doing seems to be working as Urijah Faber, Chad Mendes, Joe Benavidez, and Paige VanZant have yet to pull out of a UFC bout due to injury. Do you think other training camps need to tone it down with how hard they train, or is the risk worth the payoff? Share your thoughts in the comment section below!

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