Miriam Nakamoto's coach blasts Lauren Murphy's post-fight statements

Miriam Nakamoto‘s longtime coach is breaking a longtime tradition of declining interviews to address statements her most recent opponent made following a fight for the Invicta FC bantamweight title.

In a fiery interview with MMAjunkie Radio, Kirian Fitzgibbons blasted a blog post written by Lauren Murphy (8-0) following her title-winning TKO over Nakamoto (2-1) at this past December’s Invicta FC 7 event.

“Lauren Murphy, if you’re so good, then just be good,” Fitzgibbons said. “Be happy with your belt. But she’s not happy with her belt, because she knows she doesn’t deserve her belt.

“Everybody knows that belt should have been Miriam’s, and I’ve kept my mouth shut and I’ve been respectful and never said that until this point.”

Murphy won the Invicta title in the fourth round of her bout when a knee injury took Nakamoto off her feet and the referee stepped in to wave off the bout. Subsequent clips from the fight showed Nakamoto suffered a severe knee injury in the third frame.

In her blog post, Murphy said Nakamoto asked for the fight to be stopped and didn’t persevere despite the injury. She also pointed out a picture taken of Nakamoto training jiu-jitsu the day after her loss and questioned why she didn’t grapple more during the bout.

“I just had to wonder, why wasn’t any jiu-jitsu done during the fight, when it counted?” Murphy wrote. “When the world championship was on the line, where was the toughness and heart that would allow her to return to training one day after surgery?”

Fitzgibbons said he advised Nakamoto to stay off social media after fans questioned the validity of Murphy’s win, but was angered by the tone and implications of Murphy’s comments. Particularly offensive, he said, was a statement downplaying her performance in the fight’s early rounds.

“Lauren Murphy has stated, ‘I always get my ass kicked for the first two rounds of a fight, and then I come back,’” he said. “‘So I know that even if Miriam, yes I admit, kicked my ass for the first two rounds in the fight, I was going to come back. The tide was turning. I was going to win that fight.’ That’s not true. You were 7-0 before you fought Miriam. Five of your fights were TKOs in the first or second round. The two decisions that you had went to decision and you got beat up in the first round. So if you always lost the first two rounds of your fights, when you fought Miriam, your record would have been 2-5. So that’s a lie.

“You got beat up by Miriam Nakamoto for two-and-a-half rounds. The tide definitely turned when Miriam blew her knee out on a takedown. That is when the third round changed. Until that moment, you were losing the round.”

Fitzgibbons said the bloody nose Murphy wrote about in her blog post was nothing to brag about and said such an injury is par for the course with his muay Thai-trained pupil, who’s won several championships in the striking art.

“It’s an MMA fight with four-ounce gloves,” he said. “So what. She beat the piss out of you for two-and-a-half rounds. You were going to win the fight because you gave Miriam Nakamoto, a pro boxer and pro muay Thai fighter, a broken nose? It wasn’t even broken. It was bloody. But that’s your claim to fame? ‘I was going to beat her standing up.’ No, you were going to continue to take the beating you were taking. Three more leg kicks, and you’re done, and then we would have seen the quitter that you are.

“(She wrote), ‘I would have crawled out of the cage, because the mind rules the body.’ No, the ligaments in your knee rule your body, and when it can’t bear weight, you fall down.”

Fitzgibbons went so far as to say Murphy was mocking Nakamoto’s recovery by bringing up the photo of her in the gym after the injury.

“One, she’s a nine-time muay Thai world champion; Two, when she had two good legs, she took your sorry ass down; Three, when she had one leg, you couldn’t stop her; she got back up. So where’s your jiu-jitsu, Lauren Murphy?” he spat.

The coach said that had Nakamoto not blown out her knee, the fight would have continued to play out in her favor.

“She was going to lose that fight and be a footnote in Miriam Nakamoto’s story,” he said. “That’s the reality. So to come out later and now try to build up that bravado when you’ve got (Invicta featherweight champ Cristiane) ‘Cyborg’ (Justino) knocking on your door is total bulls–t.”

Nakamoto currently is recovering from her injury and is ahead of schedule in physical therapy, Fitzgibbons said. Although the Murphy fight was the last on her previous contract with Invicta, and while Fitzgibbons said she is a free agent, the promotion has an agreement to keep her in the fold, according to Invicta president Shannon Knapp.

Murphy is currently unbooked, but Justino has said she’d like to fight the bantamweight champ this summer at 135 pounds in advance of a push for a fight with UFC women’s bantamweight champ Ronda Rousey.

Fitzgibbons said if Nakamoto and Murphy ever step into the cage again, there will be no doubt of the better fighter.

“Now, her fans are going to continue saying that she should have won, but I want everybody to remember what she said in that interview the next time she stands in front of Miriam, and Miriam absolutely destroys her,” he said. “Because she brought it on herself. That is, if she survives ‘Cyborg.’

“Winning the Invicta belt would have been wonderful; it would have been another accomplishment. But for Lauren, it is without a doubt the biggest accomplishment of her sorry life. And, sadly, there’s a great big giant asterisk next to it. Good for you, Lauren Murphy. Bra-f–king-o.”

For more on Invicta FC 7, check out the MMA Events section of the site.

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