Diego Sanchez Trained Ass Off For Donald Cerrone Fight, Says Joshua Fabia Wanted Settlement From UFC

Diego Sanchez reflected on what was a turbulent last few months.

Sanchez was set for his final UFC fight against Donald Cerrone back in May. That was until his former mentor Joshua Fabia clashed with several figures in the UFC and demanded medical records for Sanchez.

Fearing that Sanchez may not be in the best condition to fight as a result of the request, the UFC decided to pull Sanchez from the fight and he was promptly released.

Sanchez has since parted ways with the controversial Fabia who he claimed used mental manipulation on him ever since they started working together in 2019.

He also believes Fabia was looking to get money from the promotion by getting a major settlement from the UFC — something many observers in the combat sports world suspected at the time.

“I trained my ass off for ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone,” Sanchez said recently on Instagram Live (via MMA Fighting). “I was ready to get in there and go to war, because that was going to be my last fight, my big last hurrah in the UFC. Man, I put everything into that training camp. I was ready to go and I passed all my medicals, I passed everything — I did MRI, MRA, they did everything. I’m perfectly fine. And the reason why it ended the way it did with UFC, that has other implications, that’s other stuff. That’s Joshua Fabia and f*cking with the medicals and just pushing all the wrong buttons at the UFC, working his ass off to get whatever was best for his intentions, not what was best for Diego Sanchez.

“I believe my mentor was guiding me in what was best for him. And what was best for him was to try to figure out a way to get a settlement with the UFC. He knew that if there was a major settlement with the UFC, that I was going to hook him up with half, because it was all his idea, it was all his plan. He was masterminding everything. And I made the mistake of following a mentor that I thought had a stronger connection to God than me.”

The damage was done, but Sanchez is already mending relationships. He’s already on good terms with UFC president Dana White for starters.

“Me and Dana, we’ve been talking. We’re cool,” Sanchez said. “We mended. Dana told me, ‘I got nothing but love and respect for you, Diego Sanchez.’ So in the future I’d like to meet up with Dana and give him a handshake and tell him thank you for everything that the UFC did for me, giving me all of these great opportunities. If I didn’t have the UFC, I would’ve have been able to build the brand that is the Diego Sanchez legacy.”

Fabia, meanwhile, hasn’t handled the split well and made a number of accusations about Sanchez which the latter refused to respond to.

Sanchez will dive into the Fabia chapters in more detail at some point — but certainly not on Instagram.

“I will get into it sometime,” Sanchez said. “But it ain’t gonna be free and it ain’t gonna be on Instagram, and it’s going to be with a professional that understands mental manipulation.”