Seeking Redemption: How Team Ngannou plans to crack the Miocic code

It was the evening of March 13, and Eric Nicksick had just finished cornering Dan Ige in his co-main event bout against Gavin Tucker in the outskirts of Las Vegas at the UFC Apex.

Ige, the eighth-ranked featherweight, knocked out Tucker with one of the first punches he threw, ending the fight in 22 seconds.

Nicksick went to Ige's house that night to celebrate with a few beers, but the festivities didn't last long. By midnight, Nicksick, head coach at Xtreme Couture and a Las Vegas resident, was at his own home and already back to work.

He opened UFC Fight Pass on his iPad and started watching the first bout between Stipe Miocic and Francis Ngannou, a one-sided Miocic victory that took place at UFC 220 in January 2018.

As much as Nicksick might've wanted to relax after Ige's triumph, it was time to focus elsewhere. He was two weeks away from cornering Ngannou in a long-awaited rematch with Miocic, which headlines UFC 260 on Saturday at the UFC Apex and marks Ngannou's second attempt to capture the promotion's heavyweight title. Nicksick has re-watched the first encounter every day - yes, every single day - since the rematch was booked in January.

"It's just kind of been a tradition," Nicksick said.

"I watch something that has to do with Stipe Miocic every night. I just want to figure him out the best way I can. I want to be prepared for him."

Nicksick has worked with Ngannou on a full-time basis for about two years. Ngannou moved to Las Vegas from France almost four years ago, but he trained out of the UFC Performance Institute for a while and had brief stints at Xtreme Couture and Syndicate MMA. He decided Xtreme Couture would be his permanent home after a win over Cain Velasquez in early 2019, and Nicksick cornered him for the first time against Junior dos Santos later that year.

Ngannou entered the UFC in 2015 under the tutelage of former head coach Fernand Lopez. For six straight fights, including a vicious knockout of heavyweight great Alistair Overeem, "The Predator" looked unstoppable. Anthony Johnson was no longer considered the biggest knockout artist in the sport. Ngannou brought an unprecedented level of power to the table, with all six of those fights ending inside the distance and four of them within the first round.

But his hype train came to a screeching halt one month after beating Overeem when he challenged Miocic for the title. Miocic controlled Ngannou on the ground and in the clinch for most of the fight, and Ngannou gassed out en route to a lopsided decision loss.

Three years later, Nicksick is confident Ngannou - who's riding a four-fight winning streak - has made the necessary improvements and adjustments to reverse the outcome in his second meeting with Miocic.

"To his own admission, he just felt like he was going to go in there and blow through (Miocic)," Nicksick said. "And that just wasn't the case. That was maybe because of his preparation, or his mindset, or his ego, whatever it may be - I don't know.

"But the intel that he can give me is invaluable when it comes to setting up a camp, or how to push him, or make him understand what we need to do for this fight. So just understanding where he was at back then and where he's at now, we don't want to fall over any of those same speedbumps or those same traps that we might've hit in the first fight."

One of the biggest things Nicksick has worked on with Ngannou is his fight IQ and energy management. Ngannou tended to overextend on some of his punches in the past, but his coach says he'll have greater composure and his striking will be more technical during exchanges with Miocic the second time around. That will ideally help Ngannou stop the champion's takedown attempts, which are guaranteed to be a big part of Miocic's game plan again.

"Once Francis kind of gets the rhythm and the flow of the fight, he'll find his places to explode," Nicksick said. "But we don't need to explode, explode, explode, and then fall over our front foot and get taken down or something. So I think just managing the energy systems correctly will be key. And be a sniper. Take your time. Find your openings and then tear through it.

"We've been preparing from the feet to the floor," Nicksick added. "We have to. We don't have a choice. We try to focus 80% on our game plan and what we want to implement, and then we have to focus on all those other little things that Stipe is going to try to implement on us."

By bringing in additional training partners like Ronny Markes and Ilir Latifi, Nicksick wants to ensure Ngannou will be fresh in the fifth round should the rematch make it there.

"I've said to Francis (during training sessions), 'Hey, you're tired? I know you don't want to wrestle today, but what happened to you in that last camp?'" Nicksick said. "And right away, he's like, 'Well, shit, I better go back and wrestle.' He's answering the questions for you. He understands what he wants and how he wants to accomplish it. I'm just the guy to kind of help guide him to that spot."

If anyone is fit to comment on what happened in the first fight between Miocic and Ngannou, it's Nicksick. After all, he's watched it about 60 times over the past two months. And based on the footage, he doesn't think the Ngannou who fought Miocic at UFC 220 compares to the fighter Nicksick has been preparing to compete at UFC 260.

"When I go back and watch that first fight, I look at an inexperienced Francis Ngannou," Nicksick said. "I look at a guy who was kind of a puppy in the sport, who was really trying to find his legs. Now, I've seen him go out and do better things. I've seen him having more confidence in what he's trying to implement."

Nicksick said he even notices several improvements in Ngannou while comparing the heavyweight's wins before he fought Miocic in 2018 to his victories since.

"I know in the (Dos Santos) fight, we wanted to implement some more leg kicks and do some more things, and he got to showcase that a little bit," Nicksick said. "Some of the set combinations that we worked on, he did versus Jairzinho (Rozenstruik). He didn't finish on what we were supposed to finish on, but he was able to find another outlet with the lead side variant. There are things technically that he's starting to understand."

Ngannou's won both his fights since teaming up with Nicksick and has a chance to make it 3-0 - a record that would be highlighted by the UFC heavyweight title - on Saturday. There's no doubt this has been a good start to their somewhat new relationship. But while Nicksick might be the brain behind the training camps, he wants to assure that what Ngannou does in the Octagon, especially that absurd power, is all him.

"He makes you look good as a coach," Nicksick said. "I didn't do much of anything to create the power that this man has. I think just the support system and the understanding of how to put his camps together and help him out. The credit really goes to Francis."