The rift between mixed martial arts fighter Urijah Faber and Team Alpha Male ex-coach Duane Ludwig is old news. But just recently, Faber explained his side on the issue where he revealed how Ludwig is such a bully to the fighters on the team. He also revealed during the interview on The MMA Hour how Ludwig even gouged fighters for money.
Faber said that the reason why he wanted to explain his side of story was because of the recent accusations that were aired on FOX Sports. Aside from this, there was also a not-so-peaceful encounter that took place when The Ultimate Fighter 22 was being filmed.
“The most important thing about a fighter’s mentality and being successful is self-belief. My brother was in a cult and it altered his life forever. I understand about abusive relationships. I understand about pimps and hoes, man. This is the way it is. When you have somebody who’s trying to make people believe that you can’t do things without them and create a dependency, that’s unhealthy,” Faber said during the interview on The MMA Hour.
“And when he starts coming public saying ignorant things about my team, which has a bunch of future champions like Cody Garbrandt and Paige VanZant, Andrei Fili and Joseph Morales and Angelo Trevino, some guys who Duane probably doesn’t even know their names because they didn’t pay him any money, that becomes offensive to me. On top of that, it’s going to come out of this reality show. You’re going to see, because Conor (McGregor) picked up right away when Duane started making comments about ‘no one is a champion on our team except for T.J.. Conor picked 
up that Duane had been talking a bunch of crap about our team and was like, ‘dude, what’s up with that?’. And it ended up being a confrontation on the show, which you guys are going to see. Then Duane, while he’s coaching T.J. and Danny (Castillo), makes a comment to just slander our team. Then on top of that he does this apology which is basically just talking crap about me, and because he says the word ‘apology’ doesn’t make it an apology, and he says a bunch of false things in his apology. So I’m like, dude, I tried to let this guy just go and be on his way, but dysfunction just finds this guy,” he continued.
T.J. Dillashaw, who was a protégé of Faber’s team, had been caught in the middle of the issue. Dillashaw joined the Team Alpha Male but he became successful under the wings of Ludwig.
“He was really actually very distraught when Duane refused to come back to the team to help coach him. And T.J. was forced to, because he felt comfortable, go spend a little time with Duane, spend time with our team, spend time with Duane, etc., and was basically in tears because Duane refused to be a giving coach and said, ‘no, I’m building my own thing over here.’
“T.J. is my guy, he’s like my brother. T.J. is a very competitive person, and I never went to anyone and asked them not to do anything. I’ve never said ‘don’t train with this person, don’t train with that person.’ All of this is going to be news to a lot of the guys, because guys like Joseph Benavidez don’t like drama, don’t want to hear it. No one knows about that stuff, so I have done that myself because it hasn’t been something that I need to make public or anything else. It’s just something that I’ll let slide under. But Duane, the jealous ex-girlfriend, is just needling and needling. It’s just become a position where this guy has been a tyrant. He’s only about himself and money, he’s been a bully, and I’m not going to let him bully me. I’m not sitting here trying to get bullied by a guy that I’ve helped build up and done a lot of great things for,” Faber said.