Coach Diwiz on Rabindra Dhant's Road to UFC matchup

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]I just wanted to say that we are all for as you could see Ravindra, you know, eating his diet and stuff. Yeah.

[00:00:05]Training, resting, um even when I'm not in a physical state to go to the gym like I wasn't today.

[00:00:16]I'm feeling much better after some meds right now. Mhm.

[00:00:19]>> He was just grinding by himself, physio, recovery, boxing, studying his opponent, you know, visa on the side. We have his manager, AJ, also working day in and day out with sponsors, this, that. Like it's It's not just about fighting now. It's about managing your portfolio, managing your work fatigue level also a little bit, you know.

[00:00:49]Uh so, we are learning as we grow at this level, you know, like we don't have anyone else who's been here before so we can ask. Yeah.

[00:00:58]Like to us, we have coach Mike.

[00:01:01]So, he's leading us into the charge, you know, because he's been there before with Anshul. Yeah.

[00:01:06]So, he knows what's up, what it takes to dig deep to in this level, you know, so we have all the eyes on. I'm talking for Ravindra, but we as a team have our eyes on the task that lies ahead of us, May 20th in Macau Galaxy Arena.

[00:01:25]And Kimbert Alizandon is the one we're going to face face next.

[00:01:32]So, that UFC contract is a long way off, you know, one step at a time, one milestone at a time.

[00:01:38]And execute, you know, so Yeah, he's He's man in the right place right now, hungry.

[00:01:47]It couldn't have come I think it came in the perfect time in his life as well, 27 years of age.

[00:01:53]And not too early, not too not too late, you know? Yeah, I totally agree. Yeah, I think so. I think the age is actually a very sweet spot for the tournament as I feel I personally feel.

[00:02:06]But uh Yeah, since you did mention the opponent and we know there was a switch in opponents. This guy even though he's not he's not actually coming he's not coming short notice. He has had a good amount of time like >> Yes, 7 weeks was 7 weeks Buddha huh. So uh I I obviously I I've seen you talked on uh Brother Sanjay's podcast. That was a great podcast by the way. I watched that really enjoyed that. And believe it or not I don't understand Nepalese but I can I try to figure it out with the intonation, you know, like I can understand the emotion. And I really actually like him. I really like the way he hosts podcast. I have to say like he has this uh he has this really soothing voice and uh he he seems to be like a very nice uh like big brother sort of like vibe I felt like when I heard him from myself also. Yeah, so yeah, I thought I'll mention that. But since you've talked about the fight in depth there I if you could give us your like analytical opinion of the opponent that Robin is going to face in the first round.

[00:03:11]Mhm.

[00:03:13]Uh he's a proper Filipino kid, you know, with uh good hands, not scared to exchange in the pocket.

[00:03:22]Yeah. And uh we good grappling, decent grappling.

[00:03:28]Uh very reminiscent of in striking wise very reminiscent of Robin's previous the Russian opponent Torepchi Dungak. Mhm.

[00:03:40]That fight he he was also a similar stature, similar punch heavy entry kind of a fighter.

[00:03:47]But I think Kimbert has better grappling than Torepchi.

[00:03:52]Okay, yeah.

[00:03:53]Uh so, yeah, we are working accordingly to yeah.

[00:04:01]Right. We studied this and good good I mean, the previous opponent Maddie he and he was good. He was good good.

[00:04:08]Right? We were already dialing down our attention to all respect and unfortunately Maddie could [clears throat] not make it this time due to injuries, you know, part of the game.

[00:04:21]Yeah. But I think Kimbert is just as good.

[00:04:24]Even more experience than Maddie in professional bare fights.

[00:04:29]So, yeah, [snorts] the energy, the focus doesn't waver anyway whatsoever. It's just a task at hand. We are focused on >> yeah, yeah. Is that UFC contract, that you all the noise, yeah, it is pressure, all the smoking mirrors is real, but at the same time they're all illusion, illusion to make you make a show, you know, like to make it's for the fans, you know, it's for supporters, for the fighter and the team it should just be clinical preparation, clinical execution and give respect, take respect and see what God has plans. But one question that I would want to ask you sort of a objectively, I just wanted to see what you think. Do you think this is going to be Ravinder's toughest test in terms of his opponent?

[00:05:21]Because see, in terms of the pressure we all understand, yes, because it could it's an opportunity for the dream of every MMA fighter. The end of this opportunity ends with the UFC contract.

[00:05:30]So, the pressure, of course, I don't think would be comparable, but in terms of skill wise, do you think this is the toughest opponent he's facing or he's dealt with someone tougher before? Uh stylistically, uh >> [sighs and gasps] >> stylistically speaking, um Ravindra is a much taller fighter. She's been fighting a shorter fighter who's coming who needs to come in with hooks and land the hooks.

[00:05:59]You know, so we got to work on that to negate that.

[00:06:03]So, for us our mentality is every fight is the toughest fight.

[00:06:07]Every fight is the toughest fight. So, we don't really look back.

[00:06:12]Looking back at Chunga's fight, we made a lot of mistakes. We had made a lot of mistakes in that fight, especially in the second round.

[00:06:19]We could have finished the fight.

[00:06:21]We won the entire second round, but only people what they remember but is that Anaconda choke.

[00:06:26]>> Mhm. Agreed, yeah. You know what I'm saying? We won the entire round and people all they remember is that 10 seconds. And it's our fault to even let people remember cuz recency bias, right?

[00:06:37]Yeah. People think we lost the second round. No, we won all three rounds.

[00:06:41]It's just that 10 seconds of that grip.

[00:06:44]People think Chunga won that second round, too.

[00:06:47]Having said that, that was our fault.

[00:06:49]We're working on certain positions where not to get carried away too fast, you know.

[00:06:55]Um I felt Ravindra got a little carried away in that second round in a certain position where Chunga just stood up with his bum up. Ravindra rolled over the top and found himself in the bottom position for a second split second.

[00:07:10]And all those small small mistakes there and um We saw Chunga has also been called up as a backup fighter for this tournament.

[00:07:18]>> That's podcast the other day. Like that's what he mentioned in that podcast.

[00:07:22]But it was a in like it was Um I I mean, I had all the empathy in when I heard that podcast, you know, with his management team [ __ ] it up.

[00:07:34]Not having sponsors at that level, you know, having three kids and having to raise three kids in this current economy, and this that. I really my heart went out to him, but I was a little like annoyed that he tried to take away from Ravi's moments as well.

[00:07:51]Like tried to make it all about his weight cut, make it all about his >> [clears throat] >> chances lost at the UFC Road to UFC, you know, but I mean I'm sure that's >> fair. It's totally fair coming from you because not only did you you mentioning it now, I mentioned it in my video too.

[00:08:09]I felt like uh while all of this can be true, credit can also be given to your opponent who also came in with a torn, you know, MCL with no MCL and, you know, an injured hamstring and his own issues.

[00:08:22]So, I totally agree.

[00:08:23]>> I mean it's all hindsight, but no, but like that's not a healthy sign in my opinion, you know.

[00:08:28]>> I agree.

[00:08:28]>> of on a mindset like you're only looking at faults without uh Giving the new credit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's that that's not I mean as a mental coach, I don't know if that's And that is what exactly I brought up in my video also. I totally agree with you and I don't like find it uh shocking that you brought this up because I felt it myself. I said while while he had his issues, he could have 100% mentioned um and given credit to the opponent for sure. I mean I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe the host didn't uh Fair enough.

[00:09:06]>> curate questions questions like that, you know, where >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. spoken about.

[00:09:12]But yeah, um I bro, I watch everything, man.

[00:09:17]No, this interview too has has like picked up. So, I think quite a few people watched it. And to be fair, many of the Nepali fans have been very uh sweet um with Bro, Nepali people at their heart, at their core, they are the most altruistic like motivated people, you know, like the most like what do you say? They have empathy.

[00:09:41]Yeah.

[00:09:42]And something in this Nepali soil, you know, that we as I'm not saying Indians don't have.

[00:09:47]I'm not comparing with anyone, yeah.

[00:09:49]Just get it straight. I'm just saying as a community we are very soft people at heart, man. We are very very um empathetic by nature for some reason, you know. And if there was a meter you probably if you had the empathy meter we'd be pretty pretty upright there.

[00:10:07]And that's that's why I really love our Nepali uh followers cuz they really empathize with our journey through out from the start from our first uh sponsor being a poultry farm, you know, eggs starting from there to up to now like building up to Road to UFC and this that, you know, and and uh yeah. Yeah. No, I mean uh I do think um the respect and love it's always good to see when both, you know, uh countries can respectfully look at the sport and then not also, you know, because I also get really annoyed when people try to cross it over into political stuff and all that stuff.

[00:10:54]Let's just enjoy the sport. And yes, within the sport the sport is very serious, but at the end of the day it's not that serious, too. That's how I look at it. In my opinion, you could differ on that. But yeah, again, um I just want to wrap this up now. Thank you so much for taking out the time especially considering you know No, no, for seri- like seriously you you I can see how much you are sort of struggling with right now. You're unwell, so I really appreciate you taking out the time. But before we wind up if there's any, you know, specific you know, thing that you want to mention and any message that you have for the fans because this month is going to be a big month for Nepali MMA as you mentioned and I think obviously from if you've seen the way I have covered Rabindra going to the Road to UFC, you can see how much because in my opinion once Chungreng lost the belt to Rabindra, Rabindra became the champ for you know the entire country because this is the biggest promotion in MFN. So he is to a very large extent now going to be you know going out representing that belt also.

[00:11:57]So we all really looking forward to see how he performs.

[00:12:01]Not only because of him defeating Arjan Bhullar also because he does without a doubt put on exciting events. So watching his fights is an exciting affair. So on both levels I think fans here are invested and obviously for the Nepali community you can already tell how [snorts] much excitement is there right now.

[00:12:21]They almost like people are DMing me to make videos on possible opponents that can be there for him in the future in this tournament.

[00:12:30]So the Slowly. Yeah.

[00:12:39]Kimber man. I just want to tell the Nepali fans, you know, this let's stay grounded. Put our feet Let's keep our feet on the ground, you know, even though our head is up in the air, you know, let's keep grounded for throughout, you know, when let's win with grace, you know, not with >> Yeah.

[00:12:58]Let's win with grace, prepare with grace and whatever happens we give our best you know as Rabindra as a team as his manager, coaches, I'm speaking for all.

[00:13:08]We'll give our best from our end and wherever the ball lands, you know, it's it's through all his hard work, you know, so far we've come and in that hard work that recipe we believe, you know, and yeah, after that we'll probably have a three weeks, less than three weeks time, and a little over three weeks time to head to Macau and try a shot at history, you know, for Rabindra. Yeah. There's a lot of Macau fans, I mean, Nepalese fans in Macau. I'm sure there are a lot of Filipino fans in Macau as well.

[00:13:41]So, I'm looking forward to that clash, and yeah.

[00:13:45]Yeah. That's about it. Thank you so much.

[00:13:47]>> [music]