Dan Ige
held his own despite not remembering the second half of his recent
bout.
Renowned mixed martial arts coach Eric Nicksick offered his take on
his student, Ige’s (17-7) performance against Bryce
Mitchell (16-1) at
UFC Fight Night 228. Coming off two back-to-back victories
against Nate
Landwehr and Damon
Jackson, Ige failed to secure the victory against Mitchell,
dropping a hard-fought decision.
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“50k” managed to cut Mitchell under the eye in the first round and
displayed his defensive grappling by stopping his opponent’s
takedown attempts until the last few minutes of Round 1. However,
it was a left hand landed by Mitchell in Round 2 which seemingly
hurt Ige. “Thug Nasty” followed the strike up with a takedown and
went on to control the Xtreme Couture product for the remainder of
the round.
Discussing his student’s performance in his Thursday appearance on
“Remember the
Show,” Nicksick said:
“Looking back at it now, we watched the fight yesterday, me and
Dan… He doesn’t really remember much of Round 3 and he actually
didn’t know he got clipped in Round 2 and he said that. ‘Man, I got
clipped!’ and he’s like, ‘I didn’t remember at all Round 3’ and so
he was kind of on autopilot,” Nicksick noted.
In the final round, Mitchell managed to secure an early takedown,
where he kept the Hawaiian on the mat and amassed a great deal of
control time.
“I wanted him to be more urgent in those scramble positions,” the
coach stated. “I didn’t feel like Dan was firing on all cylinders
in that moment. It’s like he was kind of like on autopilot. Now
looking back, that’s why I think it’s important to debrief with the
fighters after the fight whether you win or lose.”