“No way Matt Hamill stands with a guy like Franklin. Matt is, by far, the best wrestler in the UFC’s light heavyweight division so our plan is simple; we’re going to take Rich down and work the ground and pound while avoiding submissions…. Matt got his start helping Rich work on his takedown defense. Those two go way back and Matt has a deep respect and allegiance to Rich…. He’s sponsored Matt with his company American Fighter and has been a kind of mentor to him, and to be honest, that has me a little concerned….. I practically begged Matt to take Rich down. I was screaming at him to stop fighting Rich’s fight and fight his fight. I can’t explain it. He just had this blank look on his face. I don’t know where he was, but the Matt Hamill that I know and trained for the past 11 weeks was not in that Octagon on Saturday…. I can’t explain it. The only person that knows why he didn’t come out to fight is him. I told him after the fight that his performance was uncharacteristic and that he really needed to do some soul searching to see if this is really what he wants to do. He had absolutely no fighting spirit, no killer instinct. He looked like a shell of himself and was just out there to get through it and that is very disconcerting.”
- Duff Holmes, Matt Hamil's trainer.
