Many fans believe Cody Garbrandt gets too emotional when he steps into the cage, which is why the former UFC bantamweight champion was unable to stick to any kind of tactical gameplan in his last three bouts.

According to former Team Alpha Male (TAM) head coach Justin Buchholz, however, who trained Garbrandt for the Dominick Cruz fight, poor coaching is to blame for ‘No Love’s’ recent three-fight skid.

“They make a situation that is kind of simple, way too simple,” Buchholz said on Wednesday’s edition of The TSN MMA Show (h/t Jed Meshew of MMA Fighting). “They’re like, ‘Oh, he decided to throw caution to the wind.’ Well where was that guy, where was the guy who threw caution to the wind, kill or be killed, I’m just gonna go run across the cage holding my right hand out with my hands down, where was that guy when he fought Dominick Cruz?

“. . . It’s not kill or be killed. It’s win this fight. Get the W. It just pisses me off when people say, ‘Oh he just got emotional. He just decided to do this.’ That’s all from training! That’s all from the camp. That’s all from the cues you receive from your coach.”

Team Alpha Male hasn’t been performing too well as of late, with Garbrandt suffering three consecutive knockout losses and former bantamweight title challenger Chad Mendes abruptly retiring after his KO loss to Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 232.

According to Buchholz, who left the TAM crew in 2016, Faber’s ego is to blame for the team’s slew of bad results.

“If you think of it like football, it’s like the owner of the team got jealous of the head coach and then showed up on the field and started coaching instead of sitting back and kicking his feet up saying, ‘I started the team, I own the team, everything you do makes my shine brighter’” Buchholz said. “But some people can’t understand that because they can’t see past their own ego.

“. . . You can say whatever you want but the results speak for themselves. Cody’s only fights against top-10 opponents are Pedro Munhoz, T.J. Dillashaw, and then Dominick Cruz, and Dominick Cruz was the best out of all of them and he master-classed him but he couldn’t get past those other guys. It has a lot to do with coaching, the program, it’s all that.”

After his fall-out with Faber in 2016, Buchholz said there is no way he would ever return to TAM in the future, even if his former teammate offered to lick his boots.

“Absolutely not. I would never go back to that gym,” Buchholz said. “What I did there, I was there for 10 years. I was the first UFC fighter to fight out of Alpha Male. The social media, I did all of that. I started it from scratch. I made the Team Alpha Male Instagram, I ran that and it was the biggest team Instagram in the sport. . . The logo on all their shirts, I designed that logo. I was a huge part of that and I didn’t think that I ever, ever leave that. I thought that I was gonna die as head coach of Alpha Male but c’est la vie. Things don’t always work out the way you think they are and sometimes they turn out better for you.

“For me to ever coach Alpha Male again, that door is closed. Urijah would have to lick my boot if he wanted me to go back in that gym and even then I don’t think I’d do it.”

Buchholz is the second coach to have parted ways with TAM on bad terms, as Duane Ludwig left the team in 2014 to focus on building his own training facility, BANG Muay Thai. Ludwig also brought ex-TAM fighter T.J. Dillashaw under his wing, which didn’t go down too well with Faber and caused huge controversy in the media.

Let’s hope that, this time, Faber and Buchholz can work out their issues in private.