The American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose, California may be a factory of world champions, but it is also known as an injury-prone stable. From 2009 up to 2016, AKA has had 26 fighters pull out due to various injuries, putting them at an 18.43% injury.

But according to AKA head coach Javier Mendez, the team has learned work a lot smarter, leading to less fighters getting hurt.

“It is the nature of the sport,” Mendez told BJPenn.com Radio. “You know, there’s a lot of injuries involved in the sport. It’s not something that we have mastered yet, but I’ll tell you what, it is something that we’ve gotten better at.”

For one, Mendez is requiring his fighters to fully disclose whatever it is they are dealing with at the time they will be scheduled to spar. This strategy has apparently worked wonders for the team already.

“Well little simple things, from having the guys talk to me when they don’t want to spar. They have issues with their girlfriend or their family, you know, they didn’t get enough sleep, or they have a little injury,” Mendez said. “I want them to point it out to me. I want them to tell me what’s going on. So this way I’ll say, ‘okay, you’re just boxing today or okay, you’re not sparring today.’”

“Let me tell you something. Our injury rate has dropped almost over 50 percent.”

In some cases, however, Mendez says fighters themselves choose to fight more banged up than usual, mainly to not waste a payday.

“[Gabriel Benitez], he was scheduled to fight Andre Fili, and he was injured. He was injured, he couldn’t do nothing, and I just pleaded with him to cancel the fight,” Mendez said. “Please cancel the fight. But he needed the money. He needed the money. He could not cancel the fight. So he had no sparring, zero sparring. He was injured going into the fight, his confidence was down to the dumps, and now you fight Andre Fili for God’s sake. Come on. I mean, I knew that kid was really special.”

“So I just said, ‘Please cancel the fight.’ No. He took the fight anyways. What happens? Boom. Taken care of. So those are the things, the unknown things that the fans don’t know and they don’t understand and they don’t care to hear either.”

“All they care about is come fight time, you either win or you don’t,” he added. “And that’s what I tell my guys. I go, ‘Fans don’t give a shit whether you’re injured or not injured with your fight. They just see the winner.’”

Former UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez has so far been the poster boy for AKA as an injury-prone camp. His UFC absence remains indefinite, as he continues to recover from back surgery he had in 2017. Velasquez last fought at UFC 200 in July 2016.