"I don't know what the hell Duane is talking about," Mendes said Tuesday on The MMA Hour. "I'm tired of hearing about Duane and him ruling our team. Duane came here to Team Alpha Male for a short amount of time, and Duane did what he did, but I'd say 95-percent of our wins when he was here we would've won anyway.
"Duane was the type of guy who brought a new style to our team, but we have such a unique team, everybody is such high-level athletes that anybody can come to this team with a new style, and we're going to pick it up, we're going to learn it and we're going to use it in fights. So we made Duane. We put Duane on the map. Before that, Duane was a fighter who fought in the UFC who most people didn't even know about."
"When he got the offer, he basically said it's like coming to a garage full of Ferraris and Lamborghinis," Mendes said. "He's going to fine tune some things and those cars are going to run like hell. That's basically how it was. Duane had a new system that we hadn't seen yet and that's why things were so fun and everyone got along. Then some crazy, weird s**t happened between him and Faber, and Duane started attacking all of us in the media.
"It just sucks. It's something that really bummed me out because I liked Duane a lot, and I felt like him as a person, him as a coach, it was good until all of this stuff started happening, and then him taking digs at all of us. It's just something that I'm sick of and I want out of my life. Duane's not a part of Team Alpha Male. This is a team that I'm going to be a part of until I'm completely done fighting and probably after I'm done fighting. This is where I started, this is where I'm going to end, this is what's made me who I am today as a fighter, and I owe everything to Team Alpha Male.
"Duane was a small, tiny, little part of that, and I just hate that so many people are assuming that Duane completely made our team. I'm just tired of hearing it."
Mendes suffered a short notice loss to Conor McGregor in his most recent outing at UFC 189, pushing his record in UFC title bouts to 0-3. Ludwig said previously that he believes Mendes would've won the fight had he been "in shape" or training with him, adding that the only thing separating Mendes and fellow Team Alpha Male contender Joseph Benavidez from accomplishing what Dillashaw has done is "a little more focus and desire."
"I don't think it's getting weird," Mendes said. "I know T.J. is going to train with him probably forever, there's guys like Danny (Castillo) who are going to train with him. There's certain guys who just like working out with him. I'm not one of those guys. I like my system here. Like I said, Team Alpha Male and what we've done here is what's made me a fighter, and Duane's training was just a tiny, little part of that.
"For him to say that if I would've worked with him, I'd be champion? That, to me, is a dig at me. That's disrespectful and I don't think that's true. I did work with him. I'm not a champion. For him, his three things, I don't know what the hell he's talking about, and like I said, to me it's disrespectful, and I'm just tired of hearing about it."
