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Condit coach: Getting 'Fight of the Night' 'sucks' because of brain damage

Published Jan. 12, 2016 11:57 a.m. ET

Elias Cepeda

There are fighters who hope for "Fight of the Night" honors. Then, there are those who realize the folly in such a goal.

At UFC 195, welterweight challenger Carlos Condit and champion Robbie Lawler produced a both beautiful and brutal back-and-forth classic. They won "Fight of the Night" honors, a fact Condit's coach Mike Winkeljohn isn't very happy about, though he believes his man deserved to get the decision victory.

"We've always had that conversation that ... we'd like to not get hit as much in our fights," he recently told Submission Radio.

"We don't want to win 'Fight of the Night.' That happened to be fight of the night, which totally sucks, because there is a lot of brain damage going on, and it's definitely not worth $50,000 for that individual.

"Fans love it, everybody else loves it, but you pay for it. Hopefully you don't, but you might be paying for that later in life. We've had that conversation many times before, where Carlos has thought, you know, 'I'd like to get out of this and go forward in my life and be there for my family.'"

As such, Winkeljohn wasn't shocked when Condit told the world that he's considering retirement now.

"He's real smart that way," Winkeljohn said.

"He understands that there's more important things in life than just punching other people in the face ... Carlos is very, very smart about the game and about taking damage to your head especially, as well as to your whole body, and living a good life afterwards."

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