Hamill's ground game has been significantly upgraded over the past year with the edition of Brazilian jui-jitsu world champion and Renzo Gracie understudy Bruno Tostes.

Holmes has also made certain to keep Hamill's wrestling up to par by pairing him with the likes of 265-pound U.S. Olympic wrestling champion Steve Mocco, who Hamill was able to hold his own against and even takedown at times. Clearly, if Hamill can take down someone of Mocco's stature than a guy like Rich Franklin would be hard pressed to defend against a full on Hamill takedown attempt; a point that seems lost on many MMA media outlets.

"Reports that Matt wasn't able to take Rich down are completely false. Matt didn't shoot once the whole fight. He didn't try. Matt Hamill is one of the most physically gifted athletes in the UFC. He has double leg takedown that's like he's shot out of a cannon. The guy is an animal; unfortunately that's not the Matt Hamill that showed up on Saturday. He didn't work the game plan."

The game plan was certainly not for Hamill to come out and stand with the world class striker, Franklin. Holmes was well aware that such a strategy would play right into the former champions hands.

"Our game plan was to have Matt come out in a right handed stance because Matt had never shown that he could go southpaw and we figured Rich would expect him to fight right handed so we wanted him to think business as usual. We wanted Matt to take the first minute and avoid Rich with good footwork and make Rich wonder if he might actually stand with him. Also, we wanted Matt to get good and sweaty before hitting the ground so it would be easier to avoid submissions. Traditionally Rich has had issues with left handed fighters so we wanted Matt to switch to south paw and begin to attack from that stance. We wanted Matt to take Rich down, park in guard or half guard and posture up drop punches and elbows while avoiding submissions and work the ground and pound. This would have allowed us to control the fight while scoring points and causing damage from the top position and would have, at the very least, allowed us to probably earn a decision."

Instead, Hamill sought to trade with Franklin for most of the fight and did not engage with any meaningful strikes or flurries; a point which clearly befuddled his trainer.

"I can't explain it," said Holmes. "The only person that knows why he didn't come out to fight is him. I told him after the fight that his performance was uncharacteristic and that he really needed to do some soul searching to see if this is really what he wants to do. He had absolutely no fighting spirit, no killer instinct. He looked like a shell of himself and was just out there to get through it and that is very disconcerting."