Henri Hooft Confirms Blackzilians Departure, Cites Management Issues

Henri Hooft Confirms Blackzilians Departure, Cites Management Issues

Longtime striking coach Henri Hooft confirms he's left the Blackzilians camp in order to branch out on his own.

Jan 24, 2017 by Jim Edwards
Henri Hooft Confirms Blackzilians Departure, Cites Management Issues
One week on from Rashad Evans revealing the Blackzilians camp were seemingly no longer together, more members of the team have spoken out about their own departure from the setup.

Head striking coach Henri Hooft had been working with the Blazkzilians for over six years , however, speaking earlier this week on the Anik and Florian podcast, Hooft confirmed his departure from the team. The renown striking guru also added it'd been a decision he'd been contemplating for a while now.

"It's been something I've been thinking about for the past year, year and a half," Hooft said. "I'm a guy that just believe working with a group of guys for five, six years with the same mentality is good, but then you need to go try some other stuff out.

"I feel I need to do more for myself branding up my own name and doing the kickboxing programs that I have. At the end of the day you have to do a little bit of business and I like that."

Having stated his own departure from the team, Hooft opened up on life at the Blackzilians in the past year. He implied that all hadn't been running smoothly in the camp.

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"I worked with a good group of people and I had a good time, but there was a lot of stuff going on in the gym last year and I just thought it was the right moment to go do what I wanted to do," Hooft said. "That means train people that I want to train, in the way that I want to do it in my own place you know.

"The issue wasn't with the coaches. I saw coaches come and got in the last six years and I was still there. I didn't have a lot of problems. Of course, there was some stuff going on with the management and with the owner of the team, but that was personal and was more to do with the business."

Despite there being some issues with the team, Hooft reiterated that for him personally, it was also the right time to make a change and spread his wings.

"Sometimes things come to an end," Hooft said. "Nothing is forever and for me it was just the right moment. I'm still working with Greg Jones and Jake Bonnaci and some of the other guys, but I do things now my own way and with more the Freddie Roach approach.

"I want to train more people from different camps and I want to do my striking style. I want to be more open to the people that are interested in my style and not just a team that I close myself into."

One of Hooft's newest students is former UFC middleweight champion Luke Rockhold. Hooft explained how the two came to work together.

"Me and Luke were always cool since Luke fought Vitor Belfort," Hooft said. "I remember saying right after the fight that he had all the assets to be a champion and from that point onward we stayed in touch. He has a great coach over there [AKA] and a great gym and a lot of people are saying he's going to leave AKA to train with Henri, but that's not it.

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"We are pure martial artists and we have the same interests. Guys like Luke are get to train because I want to make them better. With Luke, it clicks and he's a really cool guy. The other guys in my gym who I'm stilling working with are Rashad [Evans] AJ [Anthony Johnson], Kamara Usman, loads of the guys are still training with me and we still do the same stuff.

"It's cool to have guys from the outside coming in like Luke Rockhold, like Michael Chandler and I want more people to come out and just be a martial artist. Come train with each other and if you end up fighting each other that's not a bad thing. We do that in kickboxing all the time."