Joshua Fabia has spoken out for the first time on his split with former client and UFC legend Diego Sanchez in a wild and explosive interview.
In a Behind The Scenes With Summer Helene interview released Friday, Joshua Fabia spilled his guts on the separation between him and Diego Sanchez. Fabia had served as Sanchez’s coach, manager, trainer, and guru for two years after Sanchez made the decision to depart from Jackson Wink MMA in 2019. The interview was extremely disjointed, full of interruptions and unfinished thoughts, yet Fabia still managed to give very long-winded responses, hence the neverending interruptions.
The lead question everyone wanted to know was what led to the split between Sanchez and Fabia. Based on what can be pieced together from his scattered thoughts, Fabia claims that it wasn’t Sanchez who broke it off with him but the other way around. The reason? Fabia underestimated what he was getting himself into when taking Sanchez on as a client.
“So what we got here is we gotta go back to how I was starting with my perception. And see my perception is I’m helping a guy and he leaves a gym, it becomes a big scandal. I’m just all of a sudden in the middle of a lot of drama,” Fabia began. “And I’m just worried about taking care of this guy. And the more I’m taking care of him, the more I’m realizing he needs a lot more help than some of my other clients. Like, this is pretty heavy.”
Joshua Fabia Accuses Diego Sanchez Of Being Coerced Into Throwing A Fight
Fabia would then state that the UFC, by way of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, strong-armed Diego Sanchez to throw a fight. Fabia did not explicitly mention the fight he was referring to, but based on the timeline provided and his description of the contest, it seems he was referring to Sanchez’s 2019 fight against Michael Chiesa.
As evidence of the fight being thrown, Fabia cited the language used by commission representatives in a closed-door meeting and Sanchez’s unusually passive performance.
“You go watch the fight, and it’s the only fight in Diego Sanchez’s history that he never threw a punch,” Fabia said.
“The last time Diego was a sportsman, he was a wrestler. So the first thing he comes out and does is goes and takes this guy’s leg. And he never throws a punch. So you tell me how come my fighter that’s been training for 10 weeks to strike didn’t throw a strike.”
Hell Hath No Fury Like A Fabia Scorned
Finally, pertaining to the separation, it seems Fabia’s main reason for terminating the relationship is because information about Sanchez’s mental capacities was withheld from him. He also managed to sling some heavy mud in Sanchez’s direction related to his poor cognitive function and bad habits by alleging past steroid usage, addiction, and a childlike level of dependency.
“I’m trying to express how I feel about what has happened in my time of two years of being slandered in the UFC, working for a guy that falsely represented himself as a regular person,” Fabia began. “As I get to more information as I’m with the lawyer and the lawyer talks to Diego and asks Diego about his education and he starts talking about how he was in special education. Holy shit, huge red flags, man! This is not at all what anyone has perceived.
“And Diego is not anywhere near what anybody knows, man. And Diego has been an addict. He hasn’t told anybody for the past five months I was his sponsor, living with him, that I had to live there because he was broke and lost all his money and strung out on kratom, and alcohol, and 30 other substances, that he has sexual abuse issues. No, no, no, he didn’t say any of that, man. And I’ve been holding up all this. I’ve been doing everything. And everybody’s coming at me.”
Finally, Fabia rejects the notion that he has been exploiting Sanchez. On the contrary, he says that it was Sanchez who exploited him during their two-year relationship. According to Fabia, the final straw is when he realized that Sanchez was not willing to accept the enormous amount of help that was required for someone of his mental state.
“Diego’s clearly been taking advantage of me for two years as I have been fighting for him and putting myself on the line for him with zero benefit. I’m the one getting death threats here…” Fabia said. “The truth is when you were talking about this moment, it was because it was feeling like I was going to be between him and his mother, and I’m not gonna do that. And that’s one of the big red flags…that and Diego is probably special needs. He needed to be properly cognitively studied. He never wanted to do any of that.”
The interview concluded with Fabia complaining that the hosts “wasted him” on a half-hour interview, and the two sides loosely agreed to run it back for an hour next time.
As for Diego Sanchez, it was said that he would be releasing a full statement this week to give his version of what led to the separation. He now has much, much more ground to cover and accusations to respond to than he originally anticipated.
We’ll have Diego Sanchez’s statement for you right here on MMA News whenever it becomes available along with any other remarks shared by the notorious, highly criticized figure that is Joshua Fabia.
What do you make of Joshua Fabia’s loaded narration on his split with UFC legend Diego Sanchez?
