Eddie Cha Is Playing Chess At The Highest Level – UFC

You have no family life, pretty much, he said. So having an understanding and unbelievable wife is honestly the secret, but it's hard to juggle both. It's not just me; it's our whole coaching staff. They're right there with me. We do team practices and then we gotta do these super camps. We call them super camps because we invest so much time and money and effort into them. So it's hard to juggle but it's definitely worth it and I think that's how we build the bond, relationship and rapport with these guys. When you spend eight-plus weeks, six hours a day and getting into the innermost secrets and demons and so forth, you share that bond.

The latest super camp for the Arizona squad is for former UFC flyweight champion Deiveson Figueiredo, who will attempt to regain his crown this Saturday in Anaheim when he faces Brandon Moreno in the trilogy fight that serves as the co-main event of UFC 270. Its another road trip, another fight week, another pressure-filled fight night. But its everything Cha always wanted when he was building his All In MMA gym and rep back in Southern California.

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When I was starting out in Southern California, I opened up a gym and I picked up some really good fighters at that time, and I could never get a break on getting some of the bigger names, Cha recalls. I'm like, why can't I get these guys? And eventually, I just said, forget it, the guys that I have, I'm gonna build them the best I can and that's pretty much what I did and how I got started. I started with Francisco Rivera, he won six straight (three in the UFC), got to the Top Ten, and he was pretty much my first ace. And then I worked with Bobby Green, Darrion Caldwell, Dominick Reyes, Alex Reyes and a bunch of other guys.

Enter former UFC lightweight champion Benson Henderson, who heard about Cha and reached out along with longtime MMA LAB coach John Crouch. Soon after, Cha moved out to Arizona.

And the rest was history, he laughs.

Still in Arizona and now working with the Fight Ready team in Scottsdale, Cha is still not a fan of the blistering heat, but he got his wish to work with the elite of the sport, with Figueiredo, Zhang Weili, Chan Sung Jung, Henry Cejudo and Jon Jones just a few of the names hes worked with over the past few years. And why has his system worked with such a diverse crew?

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Eddie Cha Is Playing Chess At The Highest Level - UFC

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