Cody Garbrandt’s uncle and former trainer believes another KO loss for ‘No Love’ would be a career-ender

Cody Garbrandt, 30, (12-5 MMA) last fought in December 2021 at UFC 269, where he suffered a first round TKO loss to Kai Kara-France in his flyweight debut.

‘No Love’ has experienced a tough few years. With having a bad case of Covid-19, and multiple injuries he has the daunting record of having 5 losses over the last 4 years.

In speaking with ‘Talksports’, Robert Meese, long time boxing coach and uncle to Cody Garbrandt commented (h/t MMAMania):

“If Cody gets knocked out again, I am pretty sure his career is over, but Cody can come back, George Foreman hit a bump in his career and came back and he had more fun and made more money and won the heavyweight title.”

Meese who has trained Cody since he was a child went on to say:

“So, Cody can come back, but he needs to learn fight defense, let your defense set up your offense. He’s been stopped four times, but then look at the Rob Font fight he went all rounds with Rob. In terms of weight cutting, has he done damage to his body?”

Meese also offered his own experience with how dropping weight can affect a fighter:

“I can only speak about what I know,” he continued. “I was preparing for a fight, and I had to cut extra weight at the last minute due to the opponent. So, I had to get down to a certain weight. Then the night of the fight I thought I was going to die. I cut so much weight it felt like Mike Tyson hit me. So, you’re really not going to know until the night of the fight how it feels to get hit at that weight, the real weight was 125 pounds but you’re not really doing any sparring at 125.”

Meese shared the fact that Cody Garbrandt has had issues with focus lately stating:

“Going into the T.J. fights we were concerned, because there was a change in Cody, “when Mike Tyson was knocking everybody out and then he lost he didn’t have that same fire, it happens to fighters.” Cody was missing shot combinations on the mitts in camp. I told him if he’s missing the mitts he will miss in the fight. We all knew Cody wasn’t at his best going into that fight, me, Urijah Faber, Chris Holdsworth … we all knew.”

Although the decision to move down to 125 lbs had Cody Garbrandt stating he felt great at that weight, the devastating loss to Kai Kara-France was a definite setback for the former bantamweight kingpin.

Kai Kara-France defeats Cody Garbrandt via KO at UFC 269

As far as a next fight goes, rumour was that he planned to enter the Octagon in a showdown with rival Sean O’Malley (15-1 MMA). ‘Suga’ however, has made it clear he has no interest in fighting ‘No Love’.

Do you agree with comments from Robert Meese that should Cody get knocked out in his next fight his career could be over? Who would you like to see Garbrandt fight next? Share your thoughts in the comment section PENN Nation!