Jay Heiron is your friend you saying ?? My good friend was Shawn Tompkins ......He did the striking coaching there for a longtime ...
I have heard nothing but good things about Shawn Tompkins.
I never met Jay H. I trained w/ Jay White in NY. I visited him once in Vegas. He got a blue from Renzo and then won the Pan ams after only 7 months. He got his purple and won the belt in that division at 14 months. To put this in perspective, it typically takes 5 years of hard training to get a purple, and that is for someone who is already very athletic. Jay had so much talent, many of us thought he would be the next BJ Penn (but a 260 lb version).
Sadly, Jays never filled his potential. after wining the purples at the Pan ams, Jay started tapping me. I actually let him at first to build his confidence, but eventualy he became so good that I would rarely catch him. My goal was usually just to makes it 6 minutes / out him tapping me.
I tried to push his conditioning hard, but he would just quit. He had very technical striking, combining Kyokushin Karate and boxing (as did I), but not a lot of power in his punches (for someone who is 260 he did kick like a mule). He also did not have a great chin.
When he got to Vegas, Matt Lindland was setting up his figts. Lindlam does not believe in studying tape, designing a strategy against specific fighters, he just put you in the cage and said "go get em." Jay also made the consistent mistake of squaring up and just brawling, if he got his bell rung. When that happens, you need to do 1 of 2 things. Recuperate w/the jab. Jab/stick and move until the cobwebs clear, or clinching if you can.
Finally, Jay was mismanaged. I wanted him to stay in NY and fight some easier opponents to build his record and confidence. Our school was a heavy wrestling based school. NY has great boxing, and there was and excellent Kickboxing instructor....can't remember his name, but he was Matt Serras' coach when Matt knocked out GSP.