John ‘Juanito’ Ibarra?, who is the guy in the HAT you might be asking.

His face has been popping up alot lately in the MMA world. With fighters making more and more money they are starting to train at better facilities and getting better trainers. I know this guy is not in it for the money as he says, but guys gotta eat right? Anyways, he will be a lot more in the media coming up because he is not only Rampage’s trainer, but he is also his manager. He has been training Rampage for two years now he said and didn’t want to train him until Jackson cleaned up his act. Once Jackson became a born again Christian and started to watch what he said in interviews Ibarra apparently called him to ask him if he would let him train him. He asked Jackson to give him thirty minutes to make his decision. I guess he sold him because Jackson has improved alot since leaving PRIDE. I know he has lost to a few guys over there but he was also doing alot of other things he should not have been doing while he was preparing for a fight. Ibarra also has a no nonsense approach to training and has been quoted from an interview with Fight hype as saying,

“I have an incredible marketing plan for Rampage. We don’t rest. We’ve had 13 days off this whole year. It’s not because he won the belt. When he won the belt, there’s just bigger things now. We’re work dogs. My hours are 20 hours a day, because I manage and train this kid, and 6 days a week, so we’re used to working. The belt is just a metal strap around your waist where the world sees you as the best fighter in the world, but we still have a lot to prove”

Ibarra got his coaching break with Oscar De La hoya, but he says that they aren’t exactly buddies anymore. After that it didn’t get much better, because he started coached another great fighter Vitor Belfort, but again he was treated badly with money issues and such. This guy has coached some of the best MMA fighters and it will be interesting to see how he manages training other guys while at the same time coaching/managing Jackson. Either way it is good to see a good coach bring in some new quality coaching blood to the MMA world. I hope he keeps in good graces with the fighters now and the ones he will train later because he has done a great job and proven himself Rampage. Here is a list of some of the fighters he has trained in the MMA world

Oscar De La Hoya
Vitor Belfort
Marco Ruas
Robert Emerson
Savant Young
Quinton Jackson
Michael Bisping
Cheick Kongo
Josh Barnett

Here is the latest interview with him on Fight Hype
http://www.fighthype.com/pages/content599.html