Misha Lyubimov was the man who brought Claressa Shields to Jackson Wink MMA in Albuquerque, giving him a front-row seat to her transition from boxing to mixed martial arts.
Reflecting on her time training alongside the men in the boxing room in a recent interview, Lyubimov said Shields herself would often admit that she struggled with motivation outside her specialty.
“She openly says she’s very lazy,” he said.
Lyubimov added that beyond boxing she developed what he described as “star syndrome,” often showing up late to training sessions and other commitments.
According to Lyubimov, grappling was the area Shields disliked the most.
“She couldn’t stand grappling, she pitied everyone,” he said. “She didn’t want to go to grappling, she was really lazy about wrestling.”
Because of that, the coaching staff focused heavily on defensive wrestling and grappling awareness rather than trying to turn her into a high-level grappler overnight.
“The big task was purely on defense,” Lyubimov explained, “because everyone knows that opponents will fig ht her once they get away from her.”
Despite Shields’ reluctance, Lyubimov said the gym invested significant resources into improving her ground game.
“We put a kimono on her and sent her to Gracie Barra so that she could be with my professor, who gave me the black belt, an eight-time world champion there,” he recalled.
He continued by detailing the level of support that was made available to her.
“He has many Gracie Barra schools here, of which I now run one. We provided all the best training.”
When Shields later suffered a loss that exposed some of those grappling deficiencies, Lyubimov said she placed responsibility on the coaches rather than on her own unwillingness to train in that area.
Recalling a conversation with Shields after the defeat, he said:
“When I talked to Clarissa, she says, ‘You should have trained me more in grappling.'”
Lyubimov said he immediately pushed back on that assessment.
“And I say, ‘Clarissa, if they can’t force you to come, if we can’t physically force you, you didn’t want to compete.'”
He contrasted Shields’ reaction with the approach taken by longtime Jackson-Wink head coach Greg Jackson, who he said consistently shielded his athletes from blame.
“Greg always had a habit of saying, ‘Defeat is for me, but victory is for my athletes,'” Lyubimov said. “He always said so.”
According to Lyubimov, Jackson maintained that philosophy even after Shields’ loss.
“And after the interview, after Clarissa Shields lost, and she lost in grappling, Greg said the same thing,” he recalled. “He says, ‘I take all this upon myself.'”
Lyubimov praised Jackson for never publicly shifting responsibility.
“He never blamed anyone, never pointed fingers in any direction.”
That made Shields’ criticism of her coach particularly disappointing from his perspective.
“The fact that after that she accused Greg, I didn’t like it, to be honest,” Lyubimov said.
He added that he has seen similar situations throughout combat sports, where athletes distance themselves from coaches after setbacks.
“This happens, and it has happened to many figh ters, who very often blame their coaches,” he said.
“It happens very often when you see figh ters leaving one coach for another and then in interviews they say, ‘It’s my coach’s fault.'”
For Lyubimov, that attitude is difficult to accept, especially when a coach has gone to great lengths to help an athlete succeed.
“I never liked it, especially when the coach tried to do everything he could for you.”
He also pointed to a similar storyline that appeared in Shields’ Amazon Prime documentary. According to Lyubimov, the film showed Shields blaming a coach who had helped raise her after a competition loss, before eventually reconciling with him and apologizing.
To Lyubimov, the situation surrounding her MMA grappling development felt like a familiar pattern.
