Edmond Tarverdyan: Brendan Schaub 'can't fight for s**t'

It's not a secret that heavyweight Travis Browne decided to switch camps ahead of his UFC 181 fight with Brendan Schaub. The big man used to train with Greg Jackson, but headed on over to California to work with Ronda Rousey's coach, Edmond Tarverdyan. Schaub was critical of Browne's move, saying that it a mistake among other things. Browne hasn't said much about the move, but his new coach didn't hold back when asked about Schaub on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani (via MMA Fighting):

"Honestly, somebody asked me if he can fight," Tarverdyan said. "I think he can't fight for s**t. That's what I think."

Well, that's pretty blunt. Tarverdyan also said that he believes Schaub has been critical of his camp (Glendale Fighting Club) because he got shot down when he tried to train there:

"I pick and choose my fighters, I'll tell you this much for sure," Tarverdyan said. "It's the way they approach me and the way they speak to me before they really want to be in my gym and train with me. I have heard that he did want to work with me and I said that's not the way it's going to be happening. So, stuff like that has happened, so I don't know if there's hard feelings or not. It really doesn't matter at this point. I don't want to cause any unnecessary drama."

He then expanded on his opinion of Schaub's fighting style, referencing his inability to hurt Andrei Arlovski on the ground in his last bout, and going on to say that he doesn't "fight", he just "survives" while employing stalling tactics:

"I didn't see anything special," Tarverydan said. "Nothing really happened to the guy. A heavyweight punching on the ground, you have to do some damage, you know what I mean? There's other fighters out there in the 135-pound division, even Ronda, when she hits someone on the ground it's totally different.

...

I talked about that (the stalling tactics) with Travis. He's aware. That's why you have to be working all the time, not letting him mindf**k you, try to hold onto you or anything like that, for you to get off what you're supposed to do. And you get a win like that? It's not right. It doesn't look good. It's embarrassing. It's something that I would never want to see. The fans and the crowds, everybody -- I don't think anybody enjoys that."

Browne and Schaub will face off on the pay-per-view portion of the UFC 181 broadcast, right before the two title fights.