Yeah, she came up through the Chinese sports program, right?

“She went to sports university and she majored in Wushu Xanda. She got a lot of ring time there. By the time she went to China Top Team she’d already been selected since we were really looking for female fighters to bring up. She was one of our first female fighters in China Top Team.

Ever since I started teaching her she became converted to Muay Thai. She had to adjust but she still does throw some of those Xanda spinning kicks. But back then most of her instincts were geared to that mind set, but overtime since she was constantly sparring with our fighters she would always get beaten up so she was pretty much forced to adapt. Over the years her striking system has become Muay Thai.”

Were you surprised that Jessica Andrade just went for that straight beeline blitz or were you expecting her to be cautious for the first few minutes?

“That’s what Andrade does, she never changes for anyone. She just does what she does because until she met Weili she was the strongest fighter in that division. What happened isn’t so much the speed difference but the strength, she underestimated the power of Weili. When I work with my students I look at their weaknesses and not just their strengths.”

There’s footage of Weili training her S&C all over social media, but from the outcome, it doesn’t look like Andrade took “Magnum” seriously in that regard.

“See, the videos of Weili training are all over the internet so anyone can see that she’s been working on her strength and conditioning and her hitting the pads really, really fast.

So we actually thought that Andrade would adjust, like “well I saw her and Weili is pretty strong so I’ll maybe take my time and let her make a mistake.” What we were expecting was for Andrade to not rush in like she usually does in the first round and to test Weili and find a way to take her down to the ground. But we also were aware that if Andrade didn’t change her style we’d be strong enough to stay in the pocket and strike with her.”

Talk us through the preparation it takes to make your fighter able to stand toe-to-toe in that pocket?

“So we already knew that Weili is fast and accurate but at the time she didn’t have the same strength as Andrade, but our strategy was to stand in the pocket. We’d fight her there and overpower her.

How? We needed to build new strength for Weili. So we worked with her strength and conditioning coach Ruben Payan, who’s the best in China and probably the best I’ve seen anywhere in Asia. Ruben spent a lot of time with Weili to bring out her strength in a short period of time. If it wasn’t for her S&C she would never have been able to stand up to Andrade. Never mind toe-to-toe. That was a very determining factor in our strategy.

You don’t stand in the pocket unless you’re confident you can match the strength. It’s a different ball game. We weren’t surprised at all that Andrade kept on coming. We knew we were going to win, we just didn’t know we were going to win that quickly.”

What’s your philosophy or secret when you train elite fighters?

“Dealing with top level fighters you can’t use a template. You need to know their skills and tendencies intimately, you even need to know how they think. The difference between Tiequan Zhang and Li “The Leech” Jinliang is huge. Tiequan is a fighter but he’s not an athlete. Jinliang is an athlete. In MMA it’s not the fighters who excel but the athletes.

Fighters are tough and they like to scrap but after five minutes they’re usually on a decline because they brawled too much. But athletes, whew, they can go on forever since they’re machines.

Li Jinliang is a machine! His conditioning is superb. Jinliang is fighting at welterweight and most of his opponents are bigger and more muscular than him. Compared to others he’s thin but you can’t knock him out, he also hits so hard even with his scrawny arms. It’s all technique.”