Pro Cutman "Stitch" Duran Breaks Down the Most Epic Fight Cuts | GQ Sports
well here i am right before michael buffer does the announcements people all over the world watching that i’m putting the final vaseline on vladimir and we’re about this far apart and he says you could call me son i saw him in germany like three months later and i said vladimir that one moment why he says stitch there’s very few people i trust with my life you are one of them man that gave me chills hey que pasa queue this stitched around here you’ve probably seen me in a lot of the epic fights mma kickboxing boxing
even the movies creed one two three rocky balboa played to the bone here comes the boom people always ask me what’s a cup man well very simply is we’re here to give that fighter that one more round during the fight our job is to maintain any swelling or cuts and minimize all the negative things that could stop a fight today we’re going to talk about some epic cuts and some behind the scenes stories with some of the greatest fighters in the world some of the tools that we use in the trade are the swaps these
are the ones that we apply into the adrenaline adrenaline chloride 11000
it’s made out of a seaweed base and what you do is when you put it on the cut it literally dehydrates the blood let’s talk about the answer this isn’t the antswell it’s called the ko swell my wife named it when you use a nench well it’s to maintain swelling all the end swells were always flat i could never understand this guys would do this like they’re putting makeup on it’s totally wrong this i created when i was coming back from london with kenny floyd in the ufc show we’re at the airport and i get
a bottle of water and i put it on my cheek and and the bottom it’s contoured so i went home and got some clay made a model and now we got the stitch kale as well so it’s very very important brock lesnar one of the great guys that i’ve worked with actually requested me to wrap his hands uh when he first started with the ufc that was one of the requirements for him i think he fought came to laska he ended up with a big old nasty cut and i go and i put this swab
in his cut and it goes all the way to the bone he looks at me and says stitch take care of me i said yes you know i will in a cut like brock’s it looks bad but when it comes to the eyes of stopping a fight they probably won’t stop the fight because it’s not giving a fighter a disadvantage even though the cut or the swab goes into the bone you know it’s about as deep as it’s gonna go you know i gotta show you this glove this is his glove that he ripped when
he was going to fight shane carwin so i’m putting the glove on brock lesnar and it rips just like the hulk look at that i tell bert watson our coordinator and he said man we got to figure something out so the ones shane’s wearing gloves also this size because i only got four pair so i remember working with vladimir and vitelli klitschko we would put vaseline on their wraps and then slide the glove in and that’s what i did for brock and that’s how he ended up fighting but i ended up keeping the gloves forest
grifford gotta love the guy right i wrapped his hands every day the big fight that i had with him was when he fought shogun and there was the first ufc fighter with a pride fighter in every cut you analyze it and then you figure out what are you going to use for what type of cut you know do you use a vessel constrictor do you use a coagulant something that dehydrates blood like quick aid you know so you make those evaluations and with forest yeah actually i used all three you know i used the adrenaline
to try to close as much of the blood vessels as you could but that’s a big vein so it’s continued to bleed i put the quick aid to try to dehydrate it and then i kind of filled the gap with avatine avatain is coagulating also it’s like a cotton candy so i kind of roll it up and just kind of fit it in there and it fit like a glove then i covered up with the vaseline and adrenaline mix that i put here to keep it going he ended up winning the fight so that was
a great moment for me and of course great moment for the ufc as well as uh as forrest griffin marvin eastman from merced california i’m from pornado california so we’re close to each other i know he took a knee from vitor belfort of course the doctor stopped the fight but as i’m working on his cut literally joe rogan says it looked like you flayed a shrimp and it opened it up but as i’m working on it i know that the fans are looking at the big screen up there because i hear them going ooh and
ah and one of my jobs to see in what position these fighters are in mentally can i say i tell marvin that’s a marvin this is the biggest cut i’ve ever seen in my life and he started smiling but i knew he reacted to what i said so i knew that he was okay i didn’t even treat a cut that big you pray when you look at it there’s a lot of small veins all right so it’s not gonna bleed that much looks a lot worse than it is and especially was down at the bone
it’s not gonna go no further you know you try to maintain it as much as possible but yeah i cut like that as gnarly as it is you want to stop it and save it for another day robbie lawler number one the guy is a boxing enthusiast every time we get together we talk boxing one of the last fights i had with the ufc was when robbie fought rory mcdonald and he ended up with a big old lip looked like somebody got a knife and just cut his lip but i remember i was looking at
a video this guy yells at him don’t laugh and he goes and you see blood just popping out right so what i do is i get my wet cloth and i’ll pinch and try to get as much of that blood in the little veins out as possible and then i’ll put that adrenaline and i just kind of kind of closed his lip like this and tried to get in there but it worked i saw robbie the next day they sold him up they did a great job because the cut was straight it’s the ones that
are zigzag those are the ones you got to be concerned with but what a great guy man what a war him and rory mcdonald you know nate and nick were we’re all from the 209 you know so we grew up in that type of environment i’ve always wrapped their hands both nate and nick this fight was in new york i didn’t work that one uh but the question was should the doctor had stopped the fight and as you look at it the cuts are big all right you know but we’ve seen them before but there’s
not a disadvantage there and in new york you know i guess that’s where they stopped the fight the people were doing it but yeah bottom line is still taking care of the fighters people say well you know you got scar tissue cuts gonna open a lot easier in all fairness i haven’t seen that to have a cut on that place has to be the exact same shot that you had when you cut that but once again you know i do prepare them for the worst case scenario jon jones love working with this guy you know
fortunately he was such a great fighter that there wasn’t a whole lot of injuries i had to work on but he did break his toe i think when he fought tail sonnet and the doctor’s lips and the bones kind of sticking out of his toe and the doctor says uh uh what are you gonna do snitch you know so i took it upon myself i kind of pulled it and then i taped it and i don’t think jon jones even knew that his toe was broken jon jones of course dominating the division for such a
long time but when he fought right there that was a tough fight man so you know when i get in there i have to look at him eye to eye and assure him that on my part he’s going gonna be okay so go out there and fight and fight as hard as you can making eye contact with these fighters is so so so important especially under these circumstances but once again letting them know that i’m here to cover your back and that’s what i did with jon jones so i always did with john jones jay
herron the bloodiest fighter i ever worked and he’s so proud for me to mention that he fought jonathan goulet he took a knee but the cut came this way and they bled like a pig they both had so much blood on top of the head to the bottom of the feet that i’m working on jay and i got nauseated with all the smell of the iron in the blood and it’s never happened before dr flip romanski came and says can you stop the cut the bleeding is yeah i caught no problem you know try to
give them one more round so i get the mixture of vaseline and adrenaline and i cover the cut but it popped out just like the the dyke that you see in the movies right your body just spewed out if you go to randy couture’s gym you’ll see that ring right there but j herron bloodiest fight i ever work mma the cuts are pretty much down to the bone you know when you got knees and you got elbows and the ground and pound you’re going to get some major cuts boxing bro i could be eating popcorn
and watching the fights at the same time because they don’t happen that often but when they do happen you got to be in there and give them that opportunity to win that fight and give them that one more round and make them some money metallic klitschko man i love these guys vladimir vitale been with him so many so many years but this fight that he had with lennox lewis was kind of like a last moment type of thing nobody knew who vitali was joe souza was a cup man ended up with these big big cuts
obviously the doctor stopped the fight but you know when i was working with him he looked at me so stich if you were with me when i fought linux lewis i would have won that fight vladimir klitschko the first time i worked with him he’s fighting devorah williamson he comes in in the fifth round he gets an unintentional head button and that big vein that we have right there it pops and it starts bleeding but i knew at that point that vladimir was winning the fight and i knew he had a cut that was so
dangerous that the blood would be getting in his eyes when he sat down i told him and vitaly i said look you’re winning the fight you got a bad cut i’m going to have the doctor stop the fight so when the doctor came she says well what do you think stitch and i go like this i open it up i said it’s pretty bad she stopped the fight went to the scorecards he ended up winning the fight jay nady the referee that worked the fights saw me a couple events down the road he said stitch
come here did you do what i thought you did did you open that cut in front of the doctor i said i did he goes i was ingenious but that’s knowing more than just going out there and wrapping hands and working swelling is you have to know the whole industry years later i’m leaving the wembley stadium of vladimir’s last fight with anthony joshua i’m saying goodbye to vitelli and he puts his hand on my shoulder and he’s like six nine he says we’ve been together many many years i love you you are like family you
are always welcome to my house those are the final words i said with vitaly and you know now he’s the mayor kiev and you know they’re fighting against russia and as a matter of fact this wrist wrap here i did it in the colors of the ukraine in support of of my two brothers mike tyson you know great guy i interviewed mike like a week before he got his tattoo and i said mike every fighter has that one little thing that nobody has what’s that one little thing that’s what i tell young fighters mike says
very simply goes take the pain you have to take the pain and as i left i thought man he’s so right because you take a pain in training you take pain in a fight you take pain with your family you take pain financially but you know you go into the scenario of mike in tokyo when he fought buster douglas and how important a good corner is as i mentioned earlier it’s extremely important and this was a good example he gets dropped by buster douglas but they don’t have a nets well they don’t have ice packs
i think they put ice in a rubber glove and that just kind of shows the caliber of guys that work with mike tyson there was no reason for mike tyson to have gone through those situations with not having a cup man i don’t know if it’s economics but at this level at the a level everything should be understood on the highest probabilities to give that fighter a chance to win a fight that didn’t happen with mike tyson tyson fury thank god i ended up working with him a couple of fights and what a pleasure but
jorge capetio was the cup man that was working on tyson fury and in all reality he’s not really a cup man he would just put that position but you know he’s a friend of mine in preparation for his next fight with deontay wilder he told bob aaron and top rank and tyson fury that get stitched because stitch is better as a cup man than me but once i get into the dressing room with tyson fury i walk into top rank i’m looking at his cut and i’m telling him what i’m going to do in preparation
i’ll keep ice on you every round and i look at him and i say you know tyson i also work with sponsors do you mind if i make an outfit with the same colors that you have and put my sponsors on them puts his hand on my shoulder and says stitch you could do whatever you want as long as there’s no drugs alcohol or gambling that’s the tyson fury i know and i have great pictures on the last fight with deante while they’re the last one i’m in the dressing room and he just has his
shorts on we’re i’m ready to go and i’m saying goodbye and once again thanks for keeping eyes on me give me a kiss as i love you you know talking about some of the bloodiest fights that i’ve ever worked you know at my coming out party in las vegas as a cup man was raul marcus when he fought keith moles raul was the ibf middleweight champion he ended up with two cuts here two cuts here and one here so i have to determine what are the priority cuts you know obviously these two are the most
important this one’s going to bleed but it’s not dangerous and it continues to bleed because there’s nothing but cartilage there and then the ones down here you know they’re going to bleed but it’s not going to be a disadvantage to the fighter these you’ve got to take care of right away i kept him in the game he ended up defending his world title and that was when these people in las vegas said hey who is this guy but they didn’t know that i had a lot of practice in kickboxing kickboxes get cut hauls also so
that was my welcoming fight in las vegas and was with raul until he retired i started working with my man here badou jack after he got this cut he ended up with that big old cut right there and he just bled in blood and blood and you know unfortunately the cup man at that point didn’t know what to do i would have stopped the fight immediately like i did with vladimir klitschko number one i don’t think he was winning the fight it would give him negotiating powers for a rematch because it was a unintentional headbutt
there’s really no preparation in preparing a fighter not to get cut outside of defense you know working on defense one of the epic things that i love about working with these great fighters is that deep inside i know we know that they’re all modern day gladiators but i know that their babies and my jobs take care of the baby people always ask me what do you tell these guys you know when i whisper to them well i tell them i said look man don’t worry about nothing i’m here to take care of you i love
you you know go out there you know they’re all my babies
