Fortis MMA Fight Team continues to have great success under head coach Sayif Saud.
When the UFC invades the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas, tonight, one man might be busier than all others. That man is none other than Fortis MMA head coach Sayif Saud. The head honcho of the surging team will be cornering three different athletes (Alex Morono, Miles Johns, and Austin Lingo) who represent the Dallas gym on Saturday night when the action goes down.
Former NBA superstar, Deron Williams (who is an avid MMA fan) has ownership stakes in the gym and has helped the team garner some headlines while Saud’s leadership has built the team from a small upstart gym just a few years ago to one of the premier MMA stables today.
“It’s about the culture of hard work,” Saud told Cageside Press. “It is a consistent effort that you are finally seeing come to fruition all at once. It is almost like one of those memes where they show under the water all the failures and then they show the top and that is what everybody sees, the end result. These guys have been grinding for so long and working at this together for so long. It has all just kinda hit in the last few years. The most important thing now with the success is maintaining that same work, actually working even harder and understanding what needs to happen to be that successful and to continue to be more successful than we are right now.”
Fortis MMA is continuously producing talent that is being shipped into the UFC and quickly rising up the rankings. Besides the three fighters that are competing on Saturday, the team’s roster also includes Carlos Diego Ferreira, Geoff Neal, Macy Chiasson, Steven Peterson, Uriah Hall, Ryan Spann, Alonzo Menifield, Charles Byrd, Kennedy Nzechukwu and many others.
Saying the team has been red-hot right might be a colossal understatement. Since the beginning of 2018, Foris MMA has compiled a 36-9 record in the UFC. The success of the team has led Saud to be considered by many as one of the elite coaches in all of mixed martial arts.
“I hate to lose, it is something I hate more than anything,” Saud proclaimed. “Numbers matter and the score counts. That is just the way we are, it is something we talk a lot about in the gym. I think the more that people win, the more the expectation to win and those guys are carrying it and getting the job done.”
With the team’s continued success, it has garnered the attention of fans, media, and even other fighters that want to improve their game. However, Saud warns those that want to join the team that they better fall in line.
“If you want to come train at the gym [though they aren’t taking in any more fighters at this time] and be part of the team, you are going to do what the gym does,” Saud said. “I don’t care what you have done. Nobody cares.”
Sayif Saud won’t have much time to relax after UFC 247 as he will be in the corner of the aforementioned Chiasson, who battles former flyweight champion Nicco Montano the following Saturday in Rio Rancho, New Mexico.
