Confronting coach’s suicide spurs flyweight Elliott back to octagon
UFC flyweight contender Tim Elliott was in no mood to laugh when Robert Follis first affected his life.
Elliott was attempting to cut weight for the fourth time in four weeks as he navigated the bracket on “The Ultimate Fighter,” a path that would eventually lead to him winning the show and earning a title shot against Demetrious Johnson.
But on that day in 2016, as he battled to cut the last few pounds, he wanted to quit the sport and give up on his dream.
“I was at one of the lowest points in my life,” Elliott recalled Wednesday afternoon at the MGM Grand. “(Follis) was actually coaching against me for that fight on the show, but he helped me make weight in the sauna. I told him I wanted to be done, and he told me a joke. “It sounds so stupid, but
ELLIOTT
I laughed so hard that I thought I could have stayed in the house another seven weeks. It changed my whole outlook. That was a time I was really, really struggling and that (expletive) saved me. Pretty much since then I have followed him around and picked up every word he said like gold coins. I couldn’t be away from him.”
Now Elliott needs to find a way to fight on without Follis in his corner after the famed coach committed suicide in Las Vegas this month.
Follis, 48, was a coach at Xtreme Couture, the Las Vegas MMA training
facility, and a founding member of Team Quest.
His death was a crushing blow to Elliott, who was in Winnipeg, Manitoba, for his fight on the Dec. 16 UFC on Fox 24 card when Follis never showed. He knew something was wrong when Follis didn’t immediately return a text as was his habit.
Elliott’s opponent failed to make weight, and the fight was canceled. Elliott was then left to deal with the loss of a friend and mentor.
“Honestly, there was a lot of drinking and a lot of staying up late at night crying,” Elliott said.
Elliott didn’t want to waste his last training camp with Follis, so he asked the UFC for a bout as soon as possible.
He will meet newcomer Mark de la
Rosa on the preliminary card of UFC 219 on Saturday at T-mobile Arena.
“I still feel like maybe I’m not in the right state of mind, but I have good coaches like James Krause that have been with me forever and believe in me. I feel like when the cage door shuts I believe I’ll be able to go out and do what I do,” he said. “I worry about after the fight, but what I’m really worried about is the walk to the cage.
“Usually that’s a time when I’m having a good time and really preparing myself to go to battle. I worry about how I’m going to react. I don’t mind crying, but I don’t want to be so emotional that it makes me tired. When the fight’s over, I feel like it will be a relief. It’s going to be something
I have to deal with either way. Hopefully, I can deal with it in a way that’s not as self-destructive as before.”
Elliott recently placed a down payment on a house in Mountain’s Edge and planned to relocate full time from Missouri, to partner with Follis on a new gym. He’s now unsure of his next move.
“I can’t even articulate it into words who he was,” Elliott said.
“He’s just a strong presence, and anybody that ever met him knows that.
“He wore size 14s. That’s a big shoe to fill.”
Contact Adam Hill at ahill@ reviewjournal.com or 702-277-8028. Follow @Adamhilllvrj on Twitter.