#500 – Khabib Nurmagomedov: Dagestan, MMA, UFC, Islam, Conor, Fedor & Football

The following is a conversation with Khabib Nurmagomedov, one of the greatest fighters of all time, who retired from the UFC undefeated with a perfect 29-0 record. It was a huge honor for me to meet him, to train together, and to have this deep conversation. We had this conversation entirely in Russian. This was my first time doing so on this podcast. And even these words I'm saying right now are spoken in Russian. So if you're hearing me in English, you're actually listening to the English dub. On YouTube, you can switch between language audio tracks by clicking the settings gear icon, then clicking audio track, and then selecting the language you prefer. For the original Russian version, select Russian. And for the English dub, select English. Subtitles are also available in both languages. The translation and dubbing are a collaborative effort of translators, real human beings, including myself, and AI. Thanks to the incredible team at ElevenLabs for their help. 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Thank you for the love. All right, let's go. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. And now, dear friends, here's Habib Nurmagomedov. Let's try in Russian if we can, like you suggested.

I can help you out if you need.

Yeah, thanks, brother. I kind of feel it in my heart and soul, but sometimes I can't find the right words.

I know, brother. We got this.

Great, let's start from the beginning. So, that gym back in Dagestan where you trained is legendary for its Spartan conditions. There was just one shower for 70 people, only cold water, and yet, this humble little gym managed to raise more than 20 world champions, including several UFC champions. Can you try to explain or maybe reflect on what factors in that gym, those training sessions, that life in Dagestan created so many champions?

Sure. So we're talking about the gym, the one located in Makhachkala. And Makhachkala, for the people who don't know, it's the capital of Dagestan. This was back around the years from 2000 to 2010. And even later on. In 2019, we opened up a big gym, a major facility that is still functioning to this day. But before 2019, we all actually trained in that gym where there was practically nothing. It was just a school gym with nothing but mats, a single punching bag, one climbing rope, and a kind of indoor basketball court. And if we go even further back, before 2000, before we moved to Mahachkala, we lived in a village. In the village, we had a gym right inside our house. My father, he built a gym at home, and he was training all the local village kids right there. And there were times back when I was a child, let's say when I was maybe 6 or 7 years old, I would occasionally wake up to the sound of People training, doing their drills right there in the gym, you know, like with judo or freestyle when they're drilling, one guy throwing another. Those are my first conscious memories. I was maybe 5, 6, 7 years old at that time. So my father set up this gym in the village and trained local kids, including me, my older brother, and all our close and distant relatives, anyone who wanted to come. A lot of kids came to him.

So you would wake up and there are these sounds.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You hear the hitting, the throwing, over and over. And my father's voice, how he's shouting, giving instructions, pushing someone, coaching, teaching. I lived with those sounds, but that was in the village. And later, when we moved to Makhachkala, well, you couldn't say the gym there was wow either. There were only mats and, of course, the most valuable thing an athlete can have, a coach, my father. So he trained us there. And to be honest, until I— let's say until I became a champion and had big success, we never had a good big gym where we could, you know, all take a shower together at the same time after training. We always had just one shower for everyone, no proper amenities.

So, your life story began in the mountains of Dagestan, in Sildi, then Kirovaul, and then Makhachkala. And in all these situations, there are very interesting stories. But one of the things I heard you say is that the best results are born out of the worst conditions. What can you say about that? Philosophically, is it correct to say that comfort is kind of the enemy for champions?

It depends on the sport. For example, let's say in football, you have to have conditions. You can't really play if there is practically no field. Of course, you can play in the dirt, and it happens sometimes. You can start there, but when you are 10 or 12 years old, you already have to be at a certain level. You must have conditions. But if we look at our sport, then what is the most important thing? The coach. You also need sparring partners who will push you in the gym, as they say, right? And you need the mats. Our sport is not expensive. You just buy your wrestling shoes, singlets, shorts, a t-shirt, and if there's a mat, you wrestle, you become a champion, you fight. But when you live too well, let's say, you know, You're never in need. For example, you were born into a wealthy family and you already have everything. Would that same wealthy father, would he force you to do such a brutal sport? A sport where you come home every day with injuries, uh, where you come home with an exhausted body, you come home with bruises. Would he really do that? That's the question. And the kid himself? who lives a life of luxury, would he even want to do this? When we look at it statistically, the answer is no. This is where you need that hunger. You have to be in a position where you are truly in need.

And it's interesting that there's a psychological side to this as well, that you need a tough situation to create champions. But what's really interesting is how Dagestan has produced so many wrestling champions. You mentioned football. Let's look at other countries. Why has Brazil produced so many great football players? Why does Argentina have so many football players? Of course, you have Germany, France, and all that.

European, yeah.

The whole European side. But those are completely different cultures.

Yes, well, in Brazil, their strength is in their numbers. How many people do they have? The population is huge, more than 200 million. And people really love it there. It's a huge tradition because, you know, without a real love for this sport, you can never achieve any success. You truly have to love what you are doing. So, they have the tradition and they have the love for it, and that is why they play for all the top clubs. Well, I think they just win by numbers.

Yeah, that's a powerful aspect of their culture, how much people, how much the whole nation loves to play football. And if you add to that a system that creates strong teams, That's how you can produce so many football legends.

Yes, take Dagestan, for example. We love football. I just know how much people in Dagestan love football. Yes, we have wrestlers, fighters, there are many of us. But for football players, there is no ecosystem like that, not so well organized where a kid can, for example, play at school, then go to some academy, then get noticed there, and then get picked up by a club. We don't have that system. It's just kids running on the streets, Playing on the streets, following football, let's say playing on PlayStation. There is no system, there is no selection process where kids can go and show themselves so they can be noticed and get signed. I think Brazil and other countries, and of course Europe, they have it. So yeah, we have big problems with football. However, in our sports where you can Where you can wrestle, where you can fight. In that sense, we have a system. For example, the gyms, you know, in Makhachkala, let's say for combat sports. I'm not even counting like freestyle wrestling or other styles. There may be 40 or 50 gyms for combat sports and all are full. If you win in Dagestan, you move on to the North Caucasus level, then to the Russian Nationals. If you're champion of Russia, you go to the Worlds. In amateurs, they notice you and you make a name for yourself. There is a certain ladder here, but in many other sports here in Dagestan, we don't have such a well-structured ladder for people to climb.

Can we look at this philosophically again? I mean, you've seen so many wrestlers, fighters. Why exactly were these gyms creating so many champions? I'm just honestly curious because it's rare in any sport, one gym or a small number of gyms creating so many champions.

Well, first important factor is the competition level is incredibly high. You come to the gym and in every spot you have good wrestlers, 10 or 15 guys right there, and the coaches are great. You know, it so happened that my father broke through in the media, and then I became a champion, and the other guys became champions too. And my father's philosophy, it really resonated and he became known for it.

Yeah.

But there are coaches in Dagestan that not many people know about. They are known locally, but they are very good. And actually, they have the knowledge, they have the approach, they have the philosophy. They could also be at the same level as my father was. I believe there are really quite a few of them. In terms of the coaching, I think Dagestan was extremely lucky. It probably goes back to the 1950s when wrestling really took off here, starting with Ali Aliyev, our legendary wrestler, a 5-time world champion who went to the Olympics 3 times. That's where it started, with his generation. There was Zagalov, Abdulbekov, Ali Aliyev— those are the well-known names. I mean, those guys are famous, but there were so many other less-known wrestlers who later on After they retired, they all became great coaches themselves. And these coaches, they raised a very large number of guys who are really good at wrestling. And then some of those coaches, they kind of switched over to fighting, let's say, to grappling, to MMA, and they started coaching in combat sambo as well. And it just kept going like that, you know, it was moving forward. Step by step. And so we have a huge number of really great coaches. I believe this is one of the single most important keys to the success of Dagestani wrestlers and fighters, the coaching staff of Dagestan.

Is it more about technique, or is it really just about serious, incredibly hard work?

Well, you have to look at the traditions because generally it's just the way it is in Dagestan. Everyone wrestles, everyone fights. It's part of our culture. You know yourself, fighting is like 50% wrestling. Every parent wants their children to wrestle, to be physically strong. Our approach to kids is that a child must be strong, they must be able to stand up for themselves, for their family. It's something that has traditionally always been in every single one of our clans, every family, every village. It's just in our blood.

I mean, it's worth pointing out, and you've actually written about this, that this isn't just a recent thing. It's been going on for hundreds of years.

Yes, that's right.

These lands, Dagestan specifically, have seen powerful armies sweep through time and time again. Because of that, people here have always had to fight to survive, refusing to back down, refusing to give up their land or lose their identity.

Their homes, their villages.

Yeah.

Their families and land. If we look back 1,000 years in history, maybe 1,500 years, there was the Khazar Khaganate, the Arabic Caliphate, then the Iranian Empire, or the Persian Empire, I should say. Then the Russian Empire. Timur passed through there, the Mongols. And if we look at the geographical location Of Dagestan, for those who don't know, the Caucasus Range runs across the whole region like a wall, and then it slopes down right where the Caspian Lowlands are. So you've got the sea on the right, the mountains on the left, and the Caspian Lowlands right here. And there was a city there that's still standing today. It's one of the oldest cities in the world, not just in Russia. It's Derbent. It used to be called Bab al-Abwab. It means the gate of gates. Very major trade routes went through there, very large armies passed through, and it was bound to leave a mark on the people. We have so many languages, more than 30 different languages, and people just don't understand each other. Take Islam and me. We have different languages, come from different backgrounds. Islam is lag, and I'm awar. When we talk, it's not like it's a dialect. We don't understand each other at all. But since Islam has been with us for nearly 25 years, he actually picked up some Avar over time. But anyway, the deep history of the region, it all left its mark. It created many different languages and traditions. Basically, of course, Islam is our primary religion, But Dagestan has actually absorbed a lot of cultures and faiths. Even our food culture, it is incredibly rich. We have European and Asian and Caucasian, our own unique cuisine. So, on the people, on the people themselves, the last 1,500 years of history have left a huge mark. If you're into history and you start reading about Dagestan, I think you'll get completely immersed and be amazed by what a unique place it is. So all of this left a huge mark. Look at the terrain. It's a coastal plain, and then the mountains rise up. For instance, take someone like Timur. When he passed through with a huge army, he stayed in the Dagestan lowlands but never went up into the mountains. Why? Because you've got hundreds of thousands of troops, soldiers traveling with horses and supplies. If they had started going up into the mountains where it's cold and there are no roads, it would have been too tough for them. So the highlanders somehow managed to stay independent. But the lowlands, the Caspian lowlands of Dagestan, they kept changing hands. Massive empires would roll in, and all of that left a mark on the people. The Gate of the Gates, Babul Abwab. Historians wrote about it, say, 1,000 or 1,500 years ago, great historians from various countries. People have written so much about Dagestan. It went by different names back then, but they wrote a ton about this exact region. Many people, many empires invaded our land.

So do you feel that inside you, in your blood, your heart, like all of this history?

Well, in the past, it's not like I really felt it. I knew Dagestan's history, but maybe with time you start to see it in a whole new light. Every year you change a bit on a mental and psychological level. Now I understand. I really do. You cannot just be born physically and mentally strong. Your environment shapes you no matter what, where you grew up, how you grew up, the conditions, and who you had around you. And after all, genetics are also A part of who you are. So when you add all this up, yeah, I just feel like all of this has come together inside me.

It's interesting because in sports, we know many of the names of the great fighters and wrestlers. Yet when it comes to war, there are so many people who fought, heroes, truly great warriors. Some we know by name, but, uh, Most of them will never actually know and—

Will never know.

You write about Imam Shamil, that he's an important figure for this region and a hero as well.

Well, Imam Shamil, he was known for resisting an empire as huge as Russia. Dagestan is so small, and he had so few people with him. How did he get famous? He got famous because he held out for a very long time. He didn't just resist for a couple of years. He was like a regular fighter, let's say, a soldier for 10 years. And then when he became the leader, he went on for another 25 years. So 35 years of his conscious life he spent fighting not just some random empire, but what was then, if not the most powerful, definitely one of the strongest empires of that era.

Mm-hmm.

And that is what made him famous. And so there are villages in Dagestan that deeply honor the memory of particular warriors who came from their villages, from their clan, from their ethnic group. But in, well, world history, they're barely known. Like, take Shamil. He's a leader, right? So everybody knows him. But there are plenty of heroes who've been forgotten. But yeah, their own people remember.

Villages hold on to history. Plus, we have to admit that conditions in the mountains are incredibly harsh. That's part of it too. Just surviving up there is a real struggle.

See, back then, people in the mountains worked all through the summer just to survive the winter, because winters are harsh with heavy snow completely cutting off villages. People just stay inside and try to outlast it. And in the summer, they work. Terrace farming was a huge thing for us. Our terraces are among the most, you could say, famous and ancient in the world. They're known as the Chok Terraces. Now, those are the famous ones. But every village had terraces. There's a place out there called Magitl, right across from our village. People worked over there, but here in the village is where they lived. I mean, you'd think, why didn't they just build the village right there in the place where we grow all our food? Because enemies could easily ride in on horseback. An army could easily get to you there. So they'd build the village in rugged terrain.

Yeah.

Somewhere tough to invade. For instance, our village is Sildi. It's from the word si, which is like a castle or a fortress or a tower. They built it that way so an army couldn't reach them. You'd have to hike down one mountain and then climb up a whole different mountain. And right there, they'd plant things like grain, potatoes, basically, you know, all their food. See, if we had built over there, if we lived there and grew our crops in the same place, since it's all terraced land, an army could just walk right up, launch raids, and so on. Back in the day, that's how people lived. And so, All of this took a toll on people physically, psychologically, and mentally. And honestly, well, you just can't be born in these conditions, live here, stay here, and be mentally weak. You just have to be tough. There's no other way to survive.

So you just built a sports complex there?

Yeah.

Pretty legendary, you know. Could you talk about that?

Yes, that was my father's whole plan. He really wanted it way up in the mountains. First, it's great for the fighters. Right now, I just flew out here to Las Vegas. We're sitting here, like, doing this podcast together, but I came out here for Umar's fight. And I should say, Umar did his main training there at the new base in Sildi. He spent almost a month at that place. And because it's 1,500 to 1,600 meters above sea level, Man, it's tough to train there. And the thing is, when you spend about 3 to 4 weeks there, you just have more oxygen in your blood, you have more testosterone, you improve physically, you know, your stamina builds up, and so on. And this base was sort of my father's dream. He started building it back in 2016, 2017. Money was tight back then. It was really hard, but we built it little by little. In 2020, my father passed away, but I kept the project going just a little differently, on a bigger scale. Right now, the base is open and 100 people can be there at the same time, training, eating, sleeping. And our guys hold their training camps up there. So this was sort of my father's dream that I have pretty much brought to life.

It's a powerful story to return to the place where you were born up in the mountains in order to build a sports complex where champions train. Makachkala Gym is a great place, but the mountains are special.

Mountains are mountains.

Mountains are mountains.

Your home village. No matter what, on some sort of deeper level, somehow gives you that, you know, like Americans love to say, positive energy. Not everything has to be done for money. And, you know, you shouldn't just look for profit in everything, let's say, financially. There are certain things that don't bring me anything at all, except for expenses, but I still do all of it because Because it brings me a lot of happiness and meaning. First of all, it creates a lot of jobs. People can work and earn a living. Second, it's because my father really wanted this. Third, let's say the guys can train and improve up there, both physically and spiritually. There are just so many benefits there.

I don't know if it's okay to ask something like this, but I would dream of coming out there to Dagestan and not just to Makhachkala, but to Sildi. Is that even possible for me?

I think we could film a really good story out there. I'm not sure about a podcast, but I'm sure we could shoot a really nice vlog there.

So can you tell me a bit about the journey from Makhachkala all the way to Sildi?

4 hours. Well, 3:40.

Through the mountains?

Yeah, 3:30. 340 through the mountains. The road is a real winding one, not an easy ride. If it gets to be too hard for you, we can just take a helicopter. It's no problem at all. Like 40 to 50 minutes from Mahachkala to Sildi. Otherwise, keeping it more down to earth, we go by car. So there's absolutely no problem.

I could never get used to a wealthy life. It's just, it's not in my blood to be like that.

All right, then we'll go by car.

Yeah, we could go on horseback, but a car is better.

No, no, by car is better. On horseback takes way too long.

So you mentioned money, and we were just talking about comfort, because right now there are so many champions, they win so much, things are going so well. How much harder is it to stay a champion when the money and the fame start coming in, when all that stuff starts showing up?

Well, those are all distracting things. When you become a champion, there's a massive amount of attention on you. Sometimes it's contracts, sometimes you end up having to fly a lot, you start getting busy with things, and little by little you begin to miss your workouts. You miss one, you miss two, you miss three, and all of that takes a toll. And the person who used to train with such a drive, with a hunger to be the best, as soon as they actually become the best, they just don't know what to do next. And they live their whole life Just to become— stay on the top.

Mm-hmm.

As soon as they get there, what are they supposed to do? That's it. They already made it. They've reached their goal. And there are just so many distracting factors— money, flights, meetings, contracts, video shoots. There are just so many distracting factors. And so if a person doesn't know how to handle all of this, then that person comes down from the top real fast. And I'm saying this based on my own experience, from what I've seen all around me with the ones who came before me. And back then when I was training with my father, his students who went on to become world champions, just how they finished their careers and so on. And it's what I saw from From my own observations of other types of sports, how they came back down, as far as I've learned. This is a very delicate moment. If a person climbing all the way to the top, if they can handle all of that, that already shows they have an incredibly serious mindset. Reaching the championship and staying there, reaching it is one thing, but staying a champion, that's totally different. It's incredibly tough.

You're saying that even on a local level, once you become a champion, that's already the tough moment because a lot of people who start winning, like you said, they stop fighting, they quit doing MMA and switch over to fitness. They find themselves that comfort, but holding onto it is hard even on a local level. Every single time you become more and more of a champion. You won the sambo championship, you keep winning more and more, and every time it gets harder.

Yes, and it depends on the person's goals. If you want to become an amateur champion just to prove something to yourself, that's one thing. But if you view amateur sports as a springboard to jump right into professional sports and become a champion among professionals, that's a whole different thing. There are different paths. First, you build an amateur career just to get into the pros and go even further from there. Second, after you've made it into the pros, you become a champion. And third, after you become a champion, you have to stay there. Not everyone has what it takes. It is incredibly tough. If you look at the numbers, you can literally count these champions on one hand. How many of them are there? Maybe 15, 20, 30 people, let's say 50 over the last 30 years. And how many have tried? For example, 50 achieved it over 30 years, over 35 years of MMA combat sports. But how many tried? Hundreds of thousands. And look at that number. Such a tiny amount actually reached the end goal. So for you to actually make it into this tiny list, You really have to be like just a truly unique person and a fighter and, you know, a student and a person who can accept guidance from a coach who, when they are being guided, discard the cons and take only the pros. But there are people who take criticism very hard and very negatively and are very sensitive, let's say. when they take criticism from a mentor. So it all has to click. And some accept criticism at the very beginning, but then once they become champions, it's hard for them to take it.

Mm-hmm.

It happens differently. A man sometimes doesn't even know what he is capable of. Sometimes he just can't really understand himself until he achieves success. Or becomes famous, wealthy, and powerful. That is exactly when he discovers his true qualities. When he is limited in something, in money, in power, in everything that success eventually brings him, he doesn't really know how he's going to act in this new role, doesn't know how he'll behave once he becomes big, Famous and a champion. Nobody knows. Some people say and wish, oh, if only I'd made it like that, I would do things this way. I think it's better if people don't throw around such big words because you never know how you'll carry yourself once you actually get there. You know, it's such a delicate thing getting up there and still remaining human.

When it comes to you, I see that everyone here just loves you. Even early on in your career, millions of people loved you. That is also a tough thing to deal with because maybe you start believing it.

Yeah.

And you can lose yourself in all of it. So is it all in the mind? I mean, what actually goes on in a champion's head, in yours? When you sat alone thinking about your life, who am I really? And what do I do to keep being a champion or to become one?

Well, first of all, from the very beginning, if you realize that what you're chasing isn't the most important thing in life, then it gets easier for you. And then, you know, there are some people whose, let's say, ultimate goal is to be successful, powerful, and to make it big. At the end of the day, after all, we are not really such big, important people. And I believe it's wrong to just crown yourself king because if we put it, to put it bluntly, if we're being honest here, we can't even control the basic need to go to the restroom. Maybe to some, yeah. To some people, this will probably seem a bit crude, but we all go to the restroom, excuse my language. If we can't control even this, so what can we actually control in this life? Look how many people we know, how many great people have left this Earth. It doesn't really matter how, like, big, strong, or famous you are, how wealthy you are, champion or no champion, either way, They put us all in the exact same grave, you know, 2 meters down or like a meter or a meter and a half. Different confessions, different religions, they bury people in different ways. So I actually believe that every single person should have this realization that we are just not some kind of big important people here who just decide and get to control everything. We don't get to do that. In my case, I was raised under the guidance of my father. My father was a coach, and my goal was always to become— to prove to my father that out of everyone, even though he trains many other people, he trains everyone. I mean, I'm also here. I can show him he doesn't have to look very far. I'm right there and under his guidance. I can become a champion. I looked up to him and followed his example, trained hard, and it was like, you know, a kind of a challenge to prove to him that, look, I am right here, Father, and everything you teach, I will take it all in zealously, worthily. I'll follow your program, do it right, and I will become a champion. And that was exactly the kind of goal I had, to prove it first and foremost to my father and secondly to the entire world that I can become the best wrestler or fighter, but I never thought of being crowned king. After I became a champion, I was never going to walk around like, look how cool I am. That was never in my head, and I'm really glad that the Almighty protected me from all of that because many people end up in a bad place if they act like that.

This is a profound wisdom, not thinking about being crowned. But even if you don't, a fire should burn within you, driving you to become a champion, right? As you said, hundreds of thousands, millions of people want to be a champion, but only one can be.

Yeah, but that is actually about you confronting your opponent. You've got to put a barrier inside your mind where on one side you're a humble person, But on the other side, you're different because you have a goal, your goal. Of course, you should still follow a code of honor. You should be a man, a righteous man, and know what you can and cannot do. You should always do that. But in the end, your opponent is the person who wants to stop your dream. So here, the boundaries expand just a little bit. Right here, you're already not playing humble. Right here, You just step out and you want to clear your opponent out of your way, and that's it. Because your goal is to be the best in the world and they are blocking you. Excuse me, but in this situation, there's no way you can act all humble.

Okay, but when you were training in the gym, what was it that gave you this strength? A hatred of losing or a love for winning?

I think it was the hatred of losing, yes, definitely. I mean, you know, of course you want to win, but for me there was always this driver like, no way, I am not losing, you know. When they would give me a fight, I always tell this to my guys, whenever they would give me a fight on a professional level, 100 days before it, I was, how do you say it, addiction.

Mm-hmm.

I was fixated, like when people have this addiction, but for me it was commitment that I absolutely had to prepare perfectly for the fight. I couldn't miss any training sessions. I would literally have like this panic. Like, for example, I'd fly somewhere and I have, let's say, 85 days left until the fight.

Mm-hmm.

Like, I knew that I had to fly. For example, if I was flying to Moscow, I would always pick a ticket so I could absolutely do my morning training session first. Then I'd take off around lunchtime. And once I arrived in Moscow, for whatever reason, I had to fit it all around my training schedule. Either I had to meet up before my training sessions, or I had to meet up after my training sessions. And I simply could not miss that evening training session because I had to train, During the day, from 4 to 5 hours, 2 in the morning, and 2 to 2 and a half in the evening. And I needed to— I would prepare myself that way, looking at who was in Moscow right then, wondering who I could, like, pull into a training session there. Well, they also had to— the person had to match my level as well, not just like I showed up there, you know, played around with him. I needed a fight back. I would arrange in advance who was gonna come, maybe some sparring, maybe I'd do wrestling, maybe I'd hit the weights, maybe a striking workout. So I had this— let's say I always had this tough and scientific approach to it. So I believe that more than anything, I didn't want to lose rather than I wanted to win, you know? Of course, winning is also a huge pleasure, but more than anything, I just didn't want to lose.

So in all those hard training sessions, you were thinking about not losing.

That's the fuel.

The fuel. 4 to 5 hours every single day.

Every day.

There is a story that I heard. Sadulaev, the legendary wrestler, told a story that he went to a hotel, I think it was in Moscow, to train in the gym, and he was the only— it was during the night, I don't know— he was the only one who was there. And you came down and you actually trained together. And he said a lot of great things about you. He said that you gave him some really deep wisdom, which helped him to win the gold medal at the Olympic Games. I'm curious, could you tell us now what you told him? What kind of wisdom did you give him?

I can't remember exactly, but we had really great conversations.

It's a great story that the two of you, like, two legends like that, just met completely by chance.

Well, look, he's a 2-time Olympic champion, right?

Right.

I think he doesn't skip his training either. He never missed one back then. I believe that we both ended up there because we both, you know, hate to lose, and we both really want to win. And, you know, recently I came across this idea. There are athletes who simply want to win, and then there are some for whom victory isn't enough. They want domination. I believe that he is one of those as well. They want domination. And for that, what does a person have to do? They have to train. They have to grind morning and night. And there was this thing with us. After the morning, my father never let us sleep. When I say the morning, I mean after Fajr, the dawn prayer. He just wouldn't sleep himself, so we couldn't either. So every morning, 6, 7, we'd be out doing our warm-up. Some people might call it a warm-up, but when you show up at the stadium in the morning, you run 5 kilometers, you do sprints, you work with resistance bands, you work on the pull-up bar, you do push-ups, dips, jumps, the bands, then work with a partner drilling and so on. That's about 2 hours of work. You drop 2, 2.5 kilos there. Not really a warm-up. But father always called it that, right? That was a full morning training at 7 AM. Then I came home to rest, and at 4 o'clock we'd head to the gym. The training would start at 5 o'clock and end at 7. By 8 I'd be home, and by 11 I'd rest up. And yet I kept thinking that something was missing. Like, I know that I have a start, a competition coming up, In like 40 or 30 days, and I would wake up and I'd be like, let me go to the sea. I'm gonna go down to the sea, do some running, some sprints on the sand, work out, and so on. And so many times I ended up going out for a third training session as well. Sometimes father would say, rest. In the morning, we're gonna have a heavy workload. But sometimes I wouldn't tell father. I just go out at night, head out, and train. At night, when everyone's asleep, when nobody's around, I'd grab one of my close friends, give them a call, have them pick me up, then hop in the car and head to DC. I'd train for an hour or an hour and a half, come back, and crash. Next morning, I'd get up and start all over again. And just this routine, nonstop. And when I see guys, you know, when they do just one training session, or like they say, on Wednesday we have a morning training, than an evening sauna session. What do you mean? You have to fight in 50 days. You have a huge fight ahead and you want to take a rest in the middle of the week? Well, rest on Sunday. On Saturday, do a morning training, hit the sauna in the evening, take a complete rest on Sunday and start all over again on Monday. That was just my approach. Everyone does it differently. I don't know. I just think it has to be in your head. You've got to want it. Incredibly badly.

So you believe that to be a champion you have to train like that, you have to be that serious for the majority of people?

Let's say I believe that to be at the top, the top tier, right? One of the best in the world, a person has to always be, you know, a little bit, let's say just a little bit crazy, but in a good sense of the word. You have to be addicted to it and to want this incredibly bad. You have to take a fanatical approach to the training process. Just showing up and working out, that's what hundreds of thousands of guys are doing around the world. To stand out from that, from this crowd, let's say, who have the exact same goals as you do, to stand out from that, you have to take a fanatical approach to it.

Well, look, I'm training with John Danaher, and they train like that too. They train 3 times a day, and it actually feels right this way. I mean, of course, this is how you have to train.

Because of that, John has one of the best—

Yeah, he makes champions.

Students in the world. And after all, they don't just take some random place. I mean, they're not somewhere in the middle, they're at the top. And look at their whole approach. Some people Look, a person with that kind of approach just can't be somewhere in the middle. It's impossible.

Mm-hmm.

If you have a fanatical attitude, the right attitude toward the training process, on top of that, you have to be fanatical about it. You love what you do, and in the end, there will be results. Well, just look at John and look where his guys are. He creates champions. He finds a champion in everyone across every category, right?

He makes, he creates champions, not just one or two, but all of them. He finds a champion in everyone across every category.

Look, the people who come to him, he has a system, let's say, right? Under this roof, under his roof, there is a system. People come here, And they become champions in this system. So there are people there who are champions. These are specific established names. And there are other people who came and left. They entered that black room, so to say, an uncomfortable place. They went in, stood for a year, a year and a half or 2, and left. Nobody talks about them. These are the people who came in Broke mentally and left, and there aren't just a few of them. There are a lot. Usually most people give up. There are many who give up, but then there are the ones who come in and stay there for a long time. Long, long time. And after some time they achieve success. They become the best. They prove to themselves that once they enter the system, they could stay there for a long time. Endure and become the best. They prove that they are already capable of many things. They can be trusted to supervise big, important projects. I would even say, for example, 2,000 years ago, they could easily rule entire cities. So a person who has gone through it physically, who has lived through it, who has faced challenges, Pass the tests, they are capable of a lot, highly capable. You don't just walk into martial arts and become the best. It's very difficult. It means that you go through pain, you make sacrifices, you give your time, you face setbacks and failures in training. The mental strength and capacity mean a lot there. And when I talk about his system, Look, I mean those schools that became the best, let's say, in football or in freestyle wrestling or let's say in MMA, in grappling or in judo. It's really hard to enter one of the best schools in the world, to stay when they are breaking you, throwing you, choking you, to improve as a person and as an athlete and to become a champion. It takes at least 12 years, 10 to 12 years. Maybe 15. For some, it took longer. And to get through the grind for these 15 years and then to break through and become the best is worth a lot.

Have you had those tough moments where you're almost broken psychologically? You know, just sitting there, finding it hard to breathe, and everything is going wrong? Lost in some situations. And when you were young, was there ever a moment like that? 'Cause the guys from Dagestan on the team— really great guys, by the way— all say they've never seen you broken in training. Not even losing, really. But when you were young, did it ever happen?

Look, I've been in this grind since I was a kid. Wherever my father coached, there were always— let's take the year 2004, for example. My father put together the Dagestan national team for combat sambo and in mixed martial arts, which was called no-holds-barred fighting. There were training camps too. I was 15. It was the winter of 2004. And I was the youngest guy there. The others were, let's say, between 22 and 30. All active world champions. At that time, I was like 14, 15 years old. I wrestled with them, grappled, was in this uncomfortable environment for myself where we always had the rule that the youngest has to do everything and he is always wrong. And I had to deal with that.

Yeah.

Especially in the gym, they throw you, hit you again and again. You have to show up morning and evening, day after day. This place hardens you. They say how the steel was tempered. Steel isn't tempered for nothing. How many times do you have to strike the steel before it becomes a sword? That doesn't just happen by itself.

Did you believe in yourself then?

Some of the guys who were at those camps back then, they're grown men now. Even then, they were older than me. By 10, 12, maybe 15 years, and they always used to say, Habib, we honestly thought you were going to become some kind of scholar or scientist. Because my father was always making me read and write, read and write. I would copy out entire books by hand. There was always this control. It wasn't like he'd say, Habib, go do this. And you could just walk away and not do it. When he said, go do it, you did it. My father never forgot anything. He had a phenomenal memory. He'd be like, did you do it? And everything he told you, he remembered. He just did.

He checked you.

He was like, come here, and he'd check. I knew it wasn't something I could get away with. So, you know, since childhood, I was lucky that my father always kept me close. And I found myself in this environment among fighters who at that time were— I don't know, they just didn't compete in America and Europe back then, but in the post-Soviet space, they were the best at that time. And it helped me a lot to become mentally strong.

Tell me more about your father. You've read a lot. You didn't just fight. You were well-rounded, and you told several stories about this. There is a book. What is it called? Countries and Peoples.

Yes, from my childhood.

It is, really?

Yes. And it went on. The approach was the same.

Tell that story because I think it's important for the parents listening to us to understand this. You're not just trying to create a champion. You're trying to raise a well-rounded person, a wise person, a person with depth.

Yes, you have to give the right motivation to kids with proper communication. My father was very good at this. I now realize, interacting with my own kids, how wise he was and how deeply he understood this. Because when a child is 8, 10 years old, and when they are just beginning to form as a person, It is important to have the right approach. I now understand how farsighted my father's approach was.

Mm-hmm.

First, he tried not to give me anything for free. Only sometimes I could get something for free. For example, before a holiday like Eid al-Fitr or before school started, father would give money. I'd go buy clothes at the market for back to school, that kind of thing, you know? And at other times, he always told me, well, if you want it, you need to earn it. You want me to give you money just like that? There would be some work around the house and so on that I had to do. And I knew that encouragement would always be there. My father always had this kind of approach. He set a very strong personal example, very strong. And I really learned a lot from him, took a lot. And then, as you mentioned, there was the book Countries and Peoples. Someone gave it to him as a gift. My father read through it and he realized that it was perfect for me, for a child who was 10, 11, maybe 12 at the time. That book was part of my life for about 2 or 3 years, something like that.

It was about 193 countries, their geography, history, all the details.

For each country, it describes its geographical location, which countries it bordered, its major rivers, mountains, cities, history, economy, finances— just brief information about every country. My father said, you'll tell me about each country and I'll give you money for it. And I thought, all right. I knew this was like my own little capital, just sitting there waiting for me. All I had to do was come, take that book, read it, understand it. Then my father would take the book and say, now tell me what you read, and he would check. He would look through it. The countries were arranged alphabetically: A for Andorra, Angola, and so on; B for Belgium, Brazil, and so on. Everything went in alphabetical order. I started from A and read them all straight to the very end. Like every single time when I needed the money, I did that. And for example, I go over the first 40 countries, he'd check a box, and then I continued. That's how my father would test me. Let's just say that my knowledge of geography comes from back then.

Did you realize how big the world was?

No.

As a child, you don't understand.

At that time, I didn't understand. But since then, I've had this desire to travel. I really wanted to travel, visit different countries, see wonders of the world, the Colosseum, the Pyramids. But all of this is from childhood, from what I read and wrote. It wasn't just about reading, I also had to rewrite it. I had to write it down. I always wrote down what I read. And actually, this is very good advice for parents, you know. They can use this with their children too. They can tell them to sit down and copy books by hand. First of all, eyesight improves, reading improves, writing, how you write improves. Your handwriting, and it stays with you when you read and write. It really develops a child. Not only I believe that, I actually do advise parents to motivate their kids this way. You can simply create some kind of challenge that children benefit from and reward them for it after it is done. This really helps develop a child's mind.

I actually saw advice from, from the great writers who said that they remembered doing the same thing when they were young. When they first started writing, they just simply copied other legendary writers. You read their work and then you type it out yourself, and you start absorbing that style into your bloodstream.

Well, it needs to be done in childhood.

Sure.

When the child is ready to learn and his mind is open, let's say, as a metaphor, when his table is clean, not occupied with clutter, then, as a father, you can help them place all the right things on the table in their proper place. Let's say, put the food in one place, flowers in another, something like that. It is important. That's why I believe I was very lucky. My father did the right thing. He provided me with the right kind of information, and I learned a lot just from being around him. I learned so much just from his presence. He was there at home, and then we also went to competitions. He was always there at trainings and at camps. So I absorbed a lot from him, and it was interesting for me too. Of course, when you're a teenager, sometimes you're tired, sometimes you want to break free. All of that was there, but my father had the right approach. He influenced me a lot and in the right way.

And there's the physical component too of hard work. There's a story you told about the time he made you dig a big hole just because it was difficult. There's wisdom in that, that you just need to work, you need to stay busy all the time.

These were training camps from 2005 to 2007. In the summer, we went to the mountains. There was a children's camp there, an old Soviet-style pioneer camp where we stayed doing our runs in the forest. Together we built a small training area there with a rope, a punching bag, a pull-up bar. We did sprints there, we pulled resistance bands. After running in the mountains, we would come back and work there. There were almost no mats. We built the base ourselves. It had a dining room on the first floor and an attic space where we slept. We would come downstairs, eat, go outside, train in that little sports area, then run in the forest. It was somewhere around 1,200 meters above sea level, a conifer forest. We spent the whole summer there. There we'd train in the morning, then there was nothing to do all day, and in the evening we had training sessions again. But during the day, so we wouldn't be busy with unnecessary things, my father sometimes gave us work. And we'd ask, why are we digging this pit? He'd say, well, people used to use it like a refrigerator. When you dig 2 or 3 meters down, it is cold inside. You can put milk there, cheese, things like that, so the food does not go bad. And we were like, okay, but do we really need these refrigerators every day? So, in that sense, this was his approach back then. He always had this kind of unique approach.

Well, what's the philosophy here? That you got to be busy all the time, working hard, doing something difficult.

Yes, it's very dangerous to give a child free time in adolescence. They should always be busy learning new information, improving, acquiring new skills. A person should always be busy. When you're 16, well, what can be on your mind? You should constantly develop and improve. And by this time, you should already, I believe, have decided what you want to become. You should already be investing in what you want to turn into.

By the way, you had several very good conversations with Nurallan, with Adam, which I highly recommend. In one of them, your brother Abubakar told a story that when you were young, there were several street fights, maybe many, I don't know. He said he was the one who got you into it. You were kind of bigger, and he needed protection at that time. You were that protection. Can you tell us these stories? How often did you fight on the streets of Dagestan?

Well, let's start with the fact that I never bullied anyone. Never. Although I physically could bully, yes, let's say I had the capability. I wasn't the kind of person who started the fights.

You didn't start?

I didn't.

Well, tried to finish.

Well, maybe there were some moments, but mostly no. Mostly I didn't start. Abu Bakr, sure, he was like that. In my circle, I had some guys who were a little bit like that.

He said that, that he, he's a bit of—

He was a troublemaker.

Yes, yes.

He was a troublemaker, and because of him, I got into trouble many times. When you're, let's say, 14, 15 years old and your brother is fighting, you don't really ask who's right or who's wrong. You just go in, you start to, as we say, you interfere. You just have to go in, right? But when you're older, more conscious, when you're 20, 25, or 30 years old, this is when you really start telling him, You know, Abu Bakar, I think you're wrong here. Yes, we'll finish this right now, but in the future, I wouldn't want you to get involved because I think it's wrong, right? Well, as kids, we just didn't ask. We just went right in. When we moved to Makachkala in the 1999, let's say the end of 1999, so there were We were many brothers, more than 10 of us. We lived in one house. Some were in school, some in college, some in university. But we all had one routine. We trained in the morning, then went to school. We'd come home, rest, do homework, then train in the evening, come home, and rest. Without mothers, just by ourselves. Father gathered everyone. He took in close friends and family, his nephews, cousins, relatives, Those who didn't have a father, and so on. He took them in. And we all lived in one house. We cooked, cleaned, did laundry all by ourselves. It was like, well, some kind of army life, you know? And when the brothers had some problems, let's say misunderstandings, we didn't go easy on those guys. And even those who lived around there near that house, In that district, in the settlement, everyone knew that there were lots of brothers living there. So they had to be careful. And we had a football field there. It was right in front of the house. And everyone who came to play there, we constantly had fights there, misunderstandings. There were older brothers. They were always watching us, keeping us from trouble. Don't do this, don't do that, watch your mouth. But we had our own little group. The age difference between us was maybe 2, 3 years. There were 5 or 6 of us. We'd always go outside and play football. If our team was losing, then the game would just turn into a whole different sport. And that's how we were growing up. We spent 6, 7 years there? Almost 10 years. We were living together, growing, training. A lot has happened over that time, but I was never— well, maybe just a couple of times, okay? Mostly I was never the initiator of fights, with some exceptions. I just remember since childhood my father always told me, You don't need to use force on the street. My father looked at all of this in a completely different way.

What is your understanding of the difference between the street fight and sports?

There is a very big difference. I saw many fights where if you put those same guys into sparring, in wrestling, MMA, or combat sambo, One guy could beat the other very easily, but the street is completely different. There are no rules, no referees, no points. You just fight there, and it's totally different. I can say I actually had a major turning point in my life. Let's say the one that In terms of psychology, really changed my whole attitude towards MMA.

Mhm.

Back in 2002, 2003, my father kept me in wrestling. He trained MMA, combat sambo, but wanted me to stay in wrestling. My cousin, who was older than me by a couple of months, he was training with my father. His freestyle wrestling was weak. So my father sent him to me, to the place where I was training. It was called the School of Higher Sports Mastery. The local guys from the city know this place. He came to practice and got into it with a guy in our gym who was heavier, maybe one class heavier. This guy was the best in his weight, winning Dagestan and the city too. So they got into a conflict. They were arguing. My brother had just joined. He was new to our freestyle wrestling gym, right? But I knew the other guy well. They paired up and they got into it. Well, that's my brother, right? So the guy goes, let's meet up after. And they agreed, as we say, to step outside after the training. I remember it was raining heavily. A real downpour. The guy brought his brother, I came with mine. We went outside and they started fighting one-on-one. I remember he shot in, lifted, and took him down. Abdulrahman, my brother, threw up a triangle and he choked him out. When we went out, I was thinking Abdulrahman will lose to this guy. I even visualized it happening, the whole thing. Like, this guy beats him, and then I start fighting. Well, I'm not going there for my brother to lose. In my head, I was getting into a fight, but he threw him locked up in a triangle. For the first time, I saw with my own eyes how someone chokes another person with a triangle and they lose consciousness.

Wow.

They fought. He put him to sleep. We had to pull them apart, me and other guys. Fight's over. Abdulrahman won. And on the way home, I'm like, Abdulrahman, wow, you impressed me. I came home and immediately told my father. I said, that was in 2002 or '03, if I'm not mistaken. I am 14 years old. I said, I'm switching to combat sambo. I said, what Abdulrahman did, the one he choked out, he's not just anyone in the gym. He's one of the best wrestlers, but he couldn't do anything. My father said, you'll go to wrestling, but you'll come to me, I'll teach you, you'll learn techniques here, and so on. But I want you to gain wrestling skills. I started going 3 days to train with my father, 3 days to wrestling. And at that moment, I realized that no matter how strong the wrestler is, lying on the back is where the wrestling normally ends, but MMA only begins there. And I was like, I thought, I need this, I need this mixed style. I realized this was for me. I started going to my father's trainings despite that he didn't let me. He didn't want me to do fighting. I think most people don't know this. My father wanted me to do freestyle wrestling or judo, but in my head I already had this mixed style. I always wanted to compete. I was already getting tapes to watch. I always wanted to compete where there are no rules, where I could fully use my skills.

Maximum freedom.

Yes, judo, sambo, freestyle grappling, jiu-jitsu, More people knew jiu-jitsu than grappling. After that, I switched, and from there my journey slowly started, which I had already begun. That's when I started the amateur journey. Then when I started getting good results as an amateur, I realized that I can switch to pro and achieve success.

Sambo?

In combat sambo.

Combat sambo.

I competed in all kinds of sports. Everything that involves wrestling and fighting. I competed everywhere. I competed in freestyle, in judo, in grappling, in combat sambo. I competed in sports sambo, in hand-to-hand combat, in pankration. My father put me in all competitions. He would say, you have a competition here and another one there. Now you are preparing for this one. You will compete in this weight, under these rules. in this sport, and he was sending me everywhere. He would tell me, you will need this in the future. The more competition experience you have, the more relaxed and confident you'll feel. It builds up over time. When I was young, I was losing as well. I go to a judo competition, win 2 matches, and lose 2 matches. I would ask, Father, why are you sending me there? This is not my sport. And he'd say, no, go and compete. So, okay, I went, I cut weight, The next day you come in, you see 50 competitors in your weight class. You let this weight, this competitive energy pass through you, and psychologically you get better, better, better each time. You become more relaxed about it. And this moment really affected me, although then I didn't agree with my father. Back then I thought, why should I compete in other sports? He said, you can wrestle, right? Well, go wrestle. I was saying, but judo isn't my sport, it's hard for me there. He says, well, you went on 4 times. Look, you won twice, then lost twice. You competed 4 times. You're 15 years old, you're just developing. Do you know how valuable this experience is for you? 4 matches in one day. Now when I'm coaching, I understand the psychological approach, how important it is. I realize now how correctly he prepared me for the big stage. The preparation was already happening then, when I was 15 years old. For example, when I went into the biggest fight in combat sports history, when I fought in 2018, Here in Las Vegas. At that point, I was already at my peak, prime time. I was 30 years old. I went through all possible competitions as an amateur and a professional. And you know what? I was ready. This preparation, it started back then when I was 15. It's not like they give you a fight and you prepare for 2 months. Preparation starts long before you even step into the octagon.

So this experience of competitions, which started at 15, it continued, it expanded.

Yeah, of course.

So can you explain what was going on in your head?

I didn't want to lose. I just didn't. It never occurred to me that I could get hurt, that someone could hurt me, that I might break a finger somewhere. I never had that in my head, that I could get hit, that I'd get a scratch, and so on. I don't know if you can call it perfectionism. I didn't want to lose. And to not lose, I knew I needed to compete a lot and improve. Training is one thing, but competing is different. I understood that the more I competed, the more experience I would gain. I had to go through it. It was constantly on my mind. This understanding that I must compete a lot came to me at an early age, since I was 15, 16, 17, 18, and I never stopped thinking about it. So, it was always in the back of my mind.

Were you confident that you would win?

In my youth, no.

Were you afraid to lose?

Yeah, in my youth I wasn't always so sure, I just wasn't. Because I never stood out. Yes, I had a coach for a father, and how many trainers have kids who compete but aren't successful? And then when I went to the big leagues, you know, I had already fought. I had done 16 professional fights across the post-Soviet space. Later, when I was already signed to the UFC, there I already had this feeling. You know, with each fight, I was getting mentally stronger. My mind was becoming more and more solid, like concrete. When I went out there, I knew, yes, these are fights. Yes, you can take a hit. Yes, anything can happen when knees, elbows, fists are flying. When you can get caught in a choke, you know? But I thought if they don't knock me out, how will they beat me? I have 15 minutes. 15 minutes is enough to make a person tired. I'm like, okay, if you wanna stop me, come here. I'll give you that chance. Let's get in the octagon. I had this impatience during fight week. I wanted to go in there and feel my opponent. I just wanted to be inside the cage. For them to close us in, for the referee to say, ready, ready, fight! And here I wanted to feel, to grapple with him and feel his strength, his skills, his energy, and for it not to stop. And with any opponent I felt from the beginning, and I didn't actually have superhuman strength, but from the beginning, When I grabbed them in the first minute, and then in the 6th or 7th minute, I could feel them fading. I was, let's say, like squeezing this energy out of them, and I was getting better and better minute by minute.

Can you break down the technical details of your top pressure, that pressure you put on In wrestling, on the ground, all of it. How does it work? Can you explain the philosophy behind it?

Over the years, I've learned to use my strength properly. There's this sport called Aikido. I don't like it much, but I like their philosophy where your strength might work against you. I think for a lot of listeners, this is going to be a brand new sport. But there is this sport called Aikido, and the whole philosophy behind it is using your opponent's force against them. That's what I learned to do, and I have learned to force an opponent into positions where they have to escape wasting their energy. Like when we were sparring yesterday, Mm-hmm. that's exactly what I wanted. I wanted you to feel that energy, that heavy top pressure, We could have just played around. I could have gone easy on you, but I wanted you to feel the real heavy pressure. And of course, please don't think it was a sign of disrespect. It's quite the opposite.

No, it was respect.

I just wanted you to feel that, you know, how exhausting it can be. I think you felt it yourself that it was a bit different from the kind of grappling you've dealt with before. I'm sure of it.

The only one who's even close to that is— I mean, you're the absolute number one, but the only thing is when I trained with Roger Gracie in a different sport, you get that same feeling with him, like the guy's just insanely heavy.

Pressure, pressure. Well, Roger, he's the greatest too. He's the greatest in his own sport. What makes a person unique is his style, his style and his approach to his work. I always approach my craft very professionally, you know, respectfully. I believe that if you're gonna be in this game, in this sport, you have to completely dedicate yourself to it.

But I think you had a deep understanding of how to break an opponent, both physically and psychologically, just looking at your style.

I've always been right there, always fighting for position, I always— look, I mean that— I just always had this thought in my head. My grandfather always told me, a dog that latches onto that one weak spot always wins. It's the same with a fighter. When you're fighting on pure instinct, you feel your opponent's weakness. You know where they're weak, and you have to keep pressing right there. For example, let's say I'm fighting Conor, right? His strengths are his striking, his timing, and his speed, his boxing. Why would I stand and strike with him? What am I supposed to do? I have to put pressure on his weak spot. So, that's what separates the fighters who reach success, the highest level of success, and become the best of the best. They know how to find an opponent's weakness and they pressure it relentlessly. So, it all comes down to having the right strategy here.

Your fight with Conor, I think, was the biggest fight in UFC history. That's for sure. Well, actually, in all of sports. Do you think there will ever be another fight of that magnitude in the UFC? Is it even possible?

Well, let's look at the history here. I mean, our sport is still very young, say 35 years old, starting from the '90s. Put it this way, take for example the sport most similar to MMA, which is, well, let's say boxing. How old is boxing? 150 years? Like, when you think boxing, what pops into your head? Thrilla in Manila?

Yeah, yeah. Well, I love Mike Tyson a lot too, so—

Well, Tyson had big fights, but Mike Tyson never had that signature rival like Muhammad Ali had in Joe Frazier. Yeah, he just didn't have one. I mean, who do we have? Evander Holyfield? Look, Holyfield-Tyson is no Muhammad Ali. Take Ali and Frazier. Thriller in Manila, right? People called it the greatest rivalry, and it still is. In the 20th century, there was nothing that could compare. In the 21st century, the only thing you could compare to it, purely based on the numbers, is Pacquiao and Mayweather. Yes, there was public interest, but there wasn't the energy that there was with Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier.

Yeah, if I can just pause for a second, I'll check on Perplexity. List of biggest boxing fights of all time. It's Ali and Frazier, like you said.

Yeah, yeah.

The first, the third.

Well, when he lost. And then their third fight, the Thrilla in Manila.

And Foreman. I must say Ali versus Foreman.

Well, Foreman, that was the year, I think, '74, right?

The fight was watched by up to a billion people worldwide.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was one of those things. Politics got mixed into it too.

Yeah.

Well, it was actually a very big fight.

Sugar Ray Leonard, Durán, Sugar Ray Leonard versus Thomas Hearns, Hagler versus Hearns.

Well, Hagler, Hagler and Durán in Montreal.

Yeah.

Sugar Ray Leonard and Durán in Montreal when they fought, when he admitted after the fight that he lost the mental game and broke down before the fight, but then Sugar Ray beat him later.

Yeah, he came back and won. Yeah.

Well, if you look at it out of everything that stands out, I think you can mention Frazier Muhammad Ali, and there was also Joe Louis against the German Max Schmeling. Hitler stood behind Schmeling, and Roosevelt stood behind Louis. For those who don't know this story, I just watched it recently. It was something incomparable. They were so big. They were two of the most, the most famous athletes of their time. Roosevelt was promoting Joe Louis, you know. At that moment, for America, it was like something incredible that a white president was promoting a Black world champion. And on the other hand, Hitler stood behind Schmeling.

It was what, 1936, 1938, that they had—

they fought twice?

Twice.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They fought 2 times.

This wasn't just a good boxing match, just a good fight. This was politics. Those were nations.

This was politics. This was nations.

Everything.

It all came together.

And it's the same thing with Ali too. Muhammad Ali with the Vietnam War, all that stuff.

Yes, yes.

And his, his, and even religion is tied into it. Everything here came together.

They simply went beyond sports.

Yeah.

It was the exact same thing when I fought Conor. That fight went beyond our sport. It impacted every sport because Athletes of all kinds of different sports. Everyone who loves to compete, it didn't matter if it was football, basketball, soccer, or boxing, everyone was following this. And honestly, will there be a fight like that? Well, it's hard for me to say, but I think it'll happen. It'll happen for sure. There will always be champions, there will always be rivalries, But when it'll happen, that's just a matter of time.

So, it's not entirely about the athletes, it's about everything combined.

Yeah, it's everything combined. The way he talked, what he stirred up, the lines he crossed, touching on family, religion. And then somehow, on one side you had Conor, this really interesting champion who knew how to hype himself up, and on the other side you had this undefeated somebody from nowhere, from the mountains. You know how it is. It all somehow, all of it just kind of happened naturally, and it wasn't staged. It was real. We had a real rivalry, unlike the way a lot of people now just hype up interest in a fight. But people feel that energy. It doesn't go anywhere. People can tell what's real and what's fake. And because of that, we went beyond our own sport. That's what made this fight. So massive.

Well, when you look into your heart back then and now, did you have anger? Did you have hatred for him?

Back then and even now, I'd still keep a cool head. Nothing has changed. When you let your emotions take over, when they're off the charts and you completely lose control, that's a very bad place to be. So you'll tire out faster, you'll fall, you'll fall for any kind of bait, and so on. I just knew that I needed to stay calm, composed, to stick to the plan no matter what happened, and not go beyond my emotional limits. This is a very, very dangerous moment when you give in to your emotions. You have to control them. Every single detail, every little thing has to be perfectly in place. The second you let it all slip, everything becomes a total mess. So, once the fight was finally done, I just let all my emotions out. I had to step right in and prove it, and punish him, and show them I'm better, that I'm better than him, and put a final end to this whole bitter rivalry. When all of that was over—

Your emotions came out.

That's when my emotions just went over the edge. But until the fight was completely finished, starting from training, you know, at the press conferences, at the weigh-ins, everywhere, in front of the media, everywhere, I kept myself completely under control. And I was very good at it. Honestly, looking back, it's been almost 8 years now. Looking back, well, I'm a little surprised. At that point, I was a very emotional guy too. Over these 8 years, a lot has happened in my life, but I'm surprised that I kept it together. And, well, you know, it wasn't easy for me to keep myself within my limits, to keep myself under control like that. But here, again, I'll come back to what I said, I was very lucky. My father called me, uh, at that time I was here 2 months before the fight. His advice helped me out so much because for me it was not just that it mattered, it was actually the most important thing for me back then, just to know my father's reaction, how he was taking everything that was happening. Because there was just so much media coverage. So I knew my father was watching. It was important for me to know his take. I'd call and ask, and my father would even tell me things I hadn't even asked him about. He'd bring it up on his own because you know the way it is with us between me and my father in our traditions, in our part of the world, in our family for generations, in our village. There's just always this distance with your father. Like when you walk in, there are just so many things you can't let yourself do in front of your father. You have to be like, sort of like a soldier in front of a general, right? If you can even make that comparison, if a soldier stands at attention like that, then with us it's even stricter. Like even— Just to give an example here, For instance, imagine you're a father sitting there, right? And your 2-year-old kid walks up to you and wants to play with you. You can't even, like, do that baby talk thing with your own kid.

You don't have that kind of friendship.

You know, it's a friendship, but—

It's different, yes.

There's a certain distance that you must keep around your father. You always have to be, like, completely buttoned up.

Yeah.

You have to stand like a soldier in front of your father. You don't let your emotions take over. At that point, just to know what my father thought, who was like all the way across the ocean, who couldn't just fly out and be there to support his son and just be there by my side. But for me, since he didn't have a visa, I just had to know exactly what he thought. I didn't care what anyone else thought. I didn't care about the opinions of like millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions watching this fight. I only ever cared about one person and his take, what he thought and what he'd say to me. But I couldn't call him and say, Father, what do you think about this? Well, we never had that.

Well, you had to wait.

I would just call and wait to hear what he'd say. And my father, he knew exactly where to draw the line because he was in the exact same position with his own father since his own father was still around. And then he had a son too, right? And he understood me, how I felt about him, since his relationship with his own father was the same way. And in that sense, back then, my father really kept me grounded mentally. He even told me something once. Do you know how diamonds are actually made? Under great pressure.

Mm-hmm.

He says, you're under great pressure and you have a choice. You can break down and give up, or you can get through it all properly, clearly, with dignity. Go in, prepare right, make weight, recover, go in, win, and settle it once and for all. And those exact kinds of moments, they really They deeply impacted me.

So because of those words, you could cut everything off?

Yeah.

Focus?

Well, mentally, mentally, like if a million people showed up right there and told me right outside where I was staying at the hotel, right? Like if a million people gather right under my window and said, hey, we've got your back. And honestly, just one call from my father It wouldn't even compare. Because that one call from my father, that one piece of advice, his support, his voice, it charged me up way more than absolutely everything else combined.

But I must say, Jose Aldo, who is one of the greatest fighters of all time, and still Conor was arguably able to psychologically break him. Yeah, but with you, It seems like Conor was not able to mentally affect you. Did he manage to get into your head even a little?

No, not at all. I had, I had a clear understanding that physically and mentally I was just way stronger than him. I didn't doubt myself for even 1%. Well, people, They can say whatever they want. He's got a massive fan base too. Maybe they won't agree with that, but the Almighty gave me this unshakable confidence that is just really hard for me to even put into words. And I just deeply believed that I was better than him and that I was stronger than him and that in this matchup, well, I was supposed to win. I just had this rock-solid faith in myself.

Up until that moment, is it fair to say that this was your toughest fight?

Up until that moment?

Correct.

100%, because fighting's all psychology, you know, it's a mental game. Mentally speaking, that was my toughest fight. At that point, yeah. But a tougher fight came later.

With Gaiji?

With Gaiji.

There were a lot of factors that made it so tough.

Yes.

So can you explain, you said somewhere that actually, unfortunately, or at least from my perspective unfortunately, we never got to see your absolute limit.

Were you— Not in fights, no. You've never seen my limit in fights.

But you said that Gaiji Was the closest to it because of the whole process. Can you explain why it was a tough fight, your last one?

First and foremost, it was because I had lost my father. It was hard to pull myself together. Everything piled up at once. My father was gone, and training without my father, without the person I was doing all of this for, the person I wanted to become champion for, First and foremost, to prove to him, to prove to him that I could become the best. And then the training camp itself, physically I was not in the best shape. I had injury after injury after injury. But mentally speaking, I stayed completely sharp. Well, this is. When you've got injuries, your mental game can slip a little, or things at home are going bad. All of that impacts a person. 1, 2, 3, 4. All these things affect you. You become, let's say, not sharp. You lose your fire. Your fire leaves you. Your focus leaves you. Your head is somewhere else. Even though you are physically there, mentally you are somewhere else. But I always stayed there. I knew it. Nobody had any idea that was going to be my last fight. No one knew about the talk I had with my mother.

But you knew and you were sure?

Well, I knew for myself. This is my last fight. I was never going to step into the cage again. I knew it, and I had to finish it right then and there because putting myself through all of that yet again, it would've just been too hard on me if I got injured and the fight fell through. And putting my mother through all that stress again. I knew that all the anxiety I go through for 3 months leading up to a fight, my mother goes through it too. I understood all of that. I wanted to put an end to it because we'd already had that talk, we already had an agreement. All of that combined, I mean, mentally, it just— I was, you know, I was right on the edge. Like, it was a fine line, and I really was on the edge.

And I heard, or maybe read somewhere, that you said you were already starting to miss it while the fight was still going on.

Yeah, inside the octagon. I knew it would never happen again. I stepped in there and I just took it all in. I was fighting and just every single moment. Every moment, every single move, I felt it deep down. And in my head, I already knew this was the final run. Everything I'd been doing my entire life, it all came down to this. That competitive rush. I'll never feel that anywhere else. I knew deep down this was my last fight.

What kind of feelings were those?

I've never felt anything like that again. Those feelings could only be experienced right there. On that exact day, that very evening, with that opponent inside that cage. I've never had them before that night and never had them since, and I don't think I'll ever be able to feel that way again. I think Buvaisar said that these feelings, standing on the podium, becoming an Olympic champion, you only feel them in that moment when they announce you, you step onto the podium, that's it, they announced you. You won, you leave. That's it. You only feel them there. You don't feel them anywhere else. And athletes live for those feelings. They train their whole lives for them.

Do you ever think about that? That in our lives, if we're lucky, we only get maybe 1 or 2 moments like that, at that absolute peak?

Yes, yes, yes. Very rarely. It's so rare. What is happiness, really? The way I see it, it's when you experience certain feelings for a very short time. You can't be constantly happy, like you achieve something and then you're happy for years. It just doesn't work that way. The Almighty didn't build us that way. You get there, even when you become a champion and you fully feel that moment, you win, and then you wake up the next morning and that's it. Is that all I worked for? There's nothing more like that. You know, like, can I have seconds? You can't have seconds. It's like in our cafeteria, can I have seconds? So, well, you become champion, you win, then you wake up the next day. That's it. Your daily routine continues. It doesn't end. You've already got different things going on, different problems, other tasks now, and you're like, it all went by so fast. Then you wake up the next day, pack your bags, head to the airport, fly out, land back home. Everyone's celebrating. And just like that, the next day everyone's gone. That's it. Everyone lives their own life. And, well, but later on there are moments, well, you know, when you still feel the impact of that success, let's say. Like, let's say public recognition, for example, people's recognition. And recognition is legacy. A lot of people get it twisted when we start talking about legacy. What even is a legacy? What does legacy mean, right? For me personally, it is public recognition. Like when people come up to you, like parents come up with their kid and they say, you know, you inspire our son to get into sports. You're a real role model for him. And in that exact moment, it's like you just, you start to realize that none of this was in vain. But here's the thing. Does everyone approach every champion like that? Every successful person? Do people even come up to them at all? That's the question. There are people who became champions. There are people who rose to the top of their field. But they just don't inspire anyone. And well, people look at you like, yeah, you were a champion, you know, but nobody wants to be like you. There are so many people like that who achieve success, but they they don't inspire the younger generation because the youth they look at you and they just don't see you as a good person. And looking at it that way, sports, it's such a double-edged sword.

They lost themselves in it when they became champions.

Or maybe they never truly were.

If we can, I want to talk about MMA and football in that same context. Let's start with MMA. Who do you think are the greatest fighters of all time? You said you have a few favorites. Shogun, Georges St-Pierre, and Fedor Emelianenko. Let's talk about those fighters and maybe others who interest you. They all had different distinct styles. So tell me why Shogun. You've always said that he was important to you as a fighter, and naturally he had legendary moments in Pride in 2005.

His soccer kick.

Yes, that's right.

Well, Shogun Rua, he, um, when I was 15, 16 years old, he was the Pride champion. At that time, for me, it was the best organization in the world. The best fighters in the world competed there. Fedor, Cro Cop, Shogun, Wanderlei Silva, Anderson Silva, man, they had everybody. Overeem, Dan Henderson, the Nogueira brothers, the Emelianenko brothers. They were the best at that time for me and honestly for MMA as a whole. And right there in second place, in my opinion, shining right behind Fedor, was Shogun. And the way he fights, no matter how they took him down, he get right back up. They couldn't do a thing to him. Yeah, his wrestling was lacking, but his striking, Thai clinch, punches, kicks, knees, when he landed those soccer kicks, Well, he really appealed to me as a fighter, very calm, careful, very emotionally restrained, and his fight style, his style was actually at a very high level. The way he fought, no other fighter ever did. At that time, he really impressed me. Then he crossed over to the UFC and became the UFC champion. And UFC fights and the Pride fights at that time. I didn't have a computer, internet, none of that. I remember there was this video rental place. We'd grab tapes and watch all these fights with my father. Mauricio Shogun Rua to me was like the gold standard of a fighter back then. I'd say right alongside Fedor and Georges St-Pierre.

And by the way, when you watched the fights with your father, did you watch them for fun or analyze them too?

Mostly we analyzed them. My father always loved to analyze fights. We'd sit like this and he'd say, this, this, chokes, striking, wrestling. We were constantly analyzing. There was a fight in 2006 or 2007, I don't even remember the exact year, approximately around that time when Georges St-Pierre fought Sean Sherk. We even rewatched that fight a couple of times. Then Georges St-Pierre fought BJ Penn, the second fight, I think, after the 4th round when there was a stoppage. Then, well, there were many, many fights, and my father actually admired the fighting style the fighting style of Georges St-Pierre. He really impressed us. And my father, my father always emphasized his timing of takedowns after striking, how he closed the distance. Um, and honestly, my whole, you know, like teenage conscious years growing up, like my formative years transitioning into an adult, it was all tied to Tied to Pride in its prime. And after the UFC bought Pride and those fighters crossed over, that whole boom in 2006, '07, '08, and '09, the rise of the UFC, I remember that era so vividly. My father and I rewatched so many of those UFC fights.

Well, I have to ask about Fedor. What can you say about him? He had some legendary fights. He beat Cro Cop. Big Nog, Mark Coleman.

Yeah, and Kevin Randleman. And then he had those legendary fights with the Japanese fighters who were big stars over there. Man, I loved it. Honestly, he inspired me just by the fact that he was from Russia and he was a Sambo fighter. He was closer to our school of training, Sambo, combat Sambo, and And there was this moment back in 2004, the Dagestan Combat Sambo Championship. Can you imagine? 2004, the Dagestan Combat Sambo Championship, and Fedor showed up. He showed up!

He came.

To compete in the Dagestan Open Combat Sambo Championship while being the reigning Pride champion. I was 15 years old at the time. I was right there in the venue. My father actually invited him. He was sending out invitations to different schools back then. It was Staryi Oskol where he used to train. Fedor's coaches were sent an invitation. He came with his brother Alexander. They both made it to the finals back then. I just remember $5,000, $3,000, $1,000. First, second, third place. At heavyweight, they gave a car. When the 2 brothers arrived, They beat everyone to get to the finals. They didn't fight each other. One of them took first place, that was Fedor. Alexander took second place. I remember back then when he was warming up, I was standing next to him while he warmed up. It was this building, you know, a venue that fits maybe 1,500 people, and over there was this partition, like a wall, and everyone was warming up behind that wall. At that time, well, practically very few people even knew who Fedor was, But I knew Fedor, I knew who he was, that he was the Pride champion. At that time, he beat Nogueira, beat Mark Coleman, beat Randleman. This was before his championship fight against Cro Cop. I would come over and just sit there watching how he warmed up, what he did. I just remember very well, I don't know, maybe Fedor will see this podcast, he had a thermos, he had a thermos and he was just drinking tea. And I remember he fought Ibragim Magomedov. He was also a legendary fighter of ours, a heavyweight who fought in Pride too. He fought against him, it was either his first or second fight, and he was warming up incredibly well. I remember how he was warming up his nose and his ears. I watched him, and it was unusual for me at that time. I never warmed up my nose and ears. I just remember how Fedor was really working on his nose, his ears, his whole face. And he went, fought, came back. This was in Makhachkala, 2004. It's the same as a UFC champion now coming and fighting at the Dagestan Combat Sambo Championship. Can you imagine that? Back then, it was the best heavyweight organization in the world. He comes there and fights. So he finished a fight, goes back, and he had this big thermos with him. His team was sitting separately over there. He was drinking tea. He just fought, walked back, poured some tea, and drank it. He had something to snack on with it, maybe honey or something, I just don't remember. And I was, wow, Fedor is right here. For me, that was just such a, you know, great source of motivation back then. It's really hard to put those emotions into words. By the way, maybe you could ask him about that on the podcast.

About the thermos?

No, no, about the tea. What was in it? Thyme, mint? What did he put in there?

Uh, well, I would love to talk to him on this podcast, but I think he rarely does interviews.

I think you can reach him. I can help you.

Well, if you could put in a good word for me.

Yeah, of course. I think it would be interesting for people to hear him.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

But psychologically, he's kind of like you in a way.

You mean calm? Yeah.

Yes, that calmness. You see the Pride era, those huge fights, those really tough matchups, and still he always stayed calm.

It's his aura.

Yeah?

I don't know about others, but for me that was his aura. The fact that he'd come out with such a calm, cool-headed look and knock out giants. Strong fighters at that time, right?

Yeah.

You know, we used to joke about his face that he kind of looks like a kindergarten teacher, you know, and then he goes out there and knocks out absolute giants. And he was like that, both before and after the fight, he never showed much emotion. But I think we're a little different in that regard. I think Fedor, by temperament, is calmer than I am. That's my impression. But with that cold-blooded calmness of his, I think he got to a lot of people mentally.

It's like something's happening inside both of you, like something's boiling inside. So when we look at your face, Of course it's boiling.

What do you think? You know what? It's one thing when it's boiling inside and you show it, but there are some who can't hide their feelings. But it's a different thing when it's boiling inside and on the surface you stay cold, cold-blooded, calm, and you can handle all these different emotions that hit you at the same time. There are a lot of them and they all hit differently. When you compete, What makes a fighter, an athlete at the highest level, so unique is that so many different emotions hit you at the same time. Fear, nerves, the fact that people are watching you, the thought that you might perform badly, that you might not show what you've trained for, that you might mess it up, that you might, I don't know, fall. So much enters your head, and you can put each emotion where it belongs. So, you know, if all of that gets inside your head and turns into chaos, you won't be able to handle it emotionally, but you stay cold-blooded. And you know that if you don't handle these emotions that are coming at you, if you don't handle this pressure, then it will be difficult for you to compete. Because the main competition is against yourself first. You fight yourself, you beat yourself, and only then do you actually start competing with your opponent. So I think it happens to everyone, not just him or me. The big difference here is how much you can control it.

Fedor himself famously said, the only person who can defeat me is me. The only person who can beat me is me.

He was talking about that fight with yourself, I'm sure, because if you lose to yourself, then you'll lose to your opponent very easily.

There's an interesting thing I came across. Adam Satyev said that high-level athletes often make a mistake, and what they do wrong is that when they feel fear, they tend to ignore it. He believes That you have to confront that fear and overcome it.

Yes, psychologists talk about how to work through those thoughts when they arise. You know, when fear comes up and you feel it, that's absolutely normal. It's what the Almighty put in us. People get scared, people get cold, people feel pain. People get hungry. These are things that are inside all of us. The real question is how you deal with them, how you overcome them within yourself. 100%, you can't ignore it, and you must work through it. You have to answer the questions, why did this happen? Could I do it this way instead? And this comes only with experience, only with experience. And the more you compete, You know, the more you train and the more you face it— some people actually try to avoid that moment, but the more you face it, the better and better you'll become each time. It's the same with athletes. They get nervous. That's what we call the jitters, right? At first, whenever someone competes, they get the jitters. But when you keep competing over and over again, you gradually learn how to channel those nerves in the right direction. Then it gets easier for you. And in order to get there, you have to compete. And what is competition? You meet this fear face to face. You don't avoid it. A lot of guys are staying away from competitions when they're young. They have this tension, this self-consciousness, this fear, the jitters. They're nervous. They can't sleep at night. You have to go through all of that yourself. Nobody can do it for you. A coach can train you, a coach can teach you, but all he can say is, practice, practice, practice. Then there's you, alone with your own feelings. When you lie down, when you wake up, When you walk, when you're by yourself, when you eat. There are so many moments when a person has to go through all of this on his own. And when you have to go through this over and over again, some people back away. They don't want to face it. And what do you need for that? Patience. You have to come and endure it and go through all of it. Through your skin, through your muscles, through your mind. You must let all of this pass through you and overcome it, and each time you'll get better at it.

A good example of that is the third person you mentioned, George Saint Pierre, who by the way sends his regards. I train with him a lot, and he has a very deep respect for you. But he didn't give me much good advice because when I told him I was going to train with you, he told me. What did he say? He texted me. If you die, you die. That's what he said.

Good advice. He's a wise man.

Didn't support me and said, say hi.

Tell him I say hi too.

As we were talking about, he himself has spoken about this, that he was afraid and always felt fear before every single fight.

That's interesting.

One of the greatest fighters—

In history, yeah.

And even he feels fear.

He's not afraid to admit it. Everybody has fear, everybody gets afraid. But I don't know how big that fear was for him. I really don't know. We never discussed it, but I've watched a lot of his interviews, his fights, and his training camps. The way he analyzed his past fights and all that, the way I see it, he's a very sensitive person. There are people like that too. Some guys take all of this very lightly, like, okay, we fight tomorrow, we'll see who my opponent is and how he shows up, right? But there are others who find it very difficult to handle psychologically. But the Almighty gave me this kind of calmness. Sometimes I'd get to the arena, and they bring you in four hours before the fight. They have to weigh you. They have to do doping control, and they have to tape you up. There are so many athletic commission procedures. Every state has different rules. How they bring you into the arena and all that. Sometimes I'd get there four hours early and think. What am I supposed to do? So, I make myself a little bed and say, please keep it quiet. I would lie down. I could sleep there for an hour, maybe an hour and a half. That's it. Wake up, warm up, and then I could go out and fight. And some guys, they don't sleep for 2 days before the fight. Believe me, there are fighters who don't sleep the night before a fight, and it's very hard on them. It's not really fear. It's hard to describe with just one emotion. It's too many emotions that come over a person and they can't fall asleep. It's panic, it's fear, it's worry, it's nervousness, it's the jitters. All of that builds up and a person just can't fall asleep. So, in that regard, the Almighty gave me a little more calmness, than others. I had, you know, such a cool head and calmness before the fights.

Now you're in this new position as a leader, and you're looking at all these athletes, these young guys who are already at the very top of the world, and I think they're all very different from one another psychologically, physically, and stylistically. What can you say as a coach? I know you're not a coach, but as a leader, how do you figure out what each person needs? Like now we were watching Umar prepare.

Yeah.

That each person needs something different.

Yes, everyone is different. Different styles, different mentalities, different mindsets, different approaches to fight week and to preparation as a whole. But you have to adapt to all of it. Here, you can't just take one approach. Let's say we take my approach and apply it to everyone else, to Usman, Islam, and Umar. It doesn't work like that. Everyone needs their own approach. I knew them since they were nobody, and I know them now when they are the best. So you have to treat each one differently. I'm very lucky to have Javier Mendez, he's been by my side since 2012, and when I became a coach after I finished my career, he was there with me as a coach. I switched from being a fighter to a coaching role, my father was no longer with us, and together with Javier Mendez, we've been guiding them for these last 6 years. And his experience helps me tremendously because there is no coach, no MMA coach with the kind of results Javier Mendez has, you know. So many champions, double champions, UFC fighters, so many people have trained under him, from Frank Shamrock all the way to Islam Makhachev. So many fighters have trained under him. Which makes things very easy for me because I have Javier Mendez by my side and he can help me with so many things.

What do you think is the secret behind Javier's genius? Why is he such a great coach for so many different athletes?

It's the mental side of things. I'm not going to say he's one of the best at holding pads or anything like that, But his understanding of MMA itself, his approach to training camp, to the whole preparation process, and the amount of attention he pays to sparring inside the cage. I'm not talking about those sparring sessions with 50 people in the gym and everyone is sparring with each other. For example, when I was preparing for a 5-round fight, he would always bring in 2 or 3 high-level opponents Constantly rotating in fresh sparring partners.

And he would watch and analyze.

I don't remember him ever missing a single sparring session since 2012. Can you imagine? 14 years have gone by, and right now we're in training camp. He's there for every training session, morning and evening. He's at every sparring session, watching everyone, coaching them, giving advice, guiding them. He's incredibly dedicated to what he does. He's either all in or he steps away completely. He never shows up and gives only 50%. I remember one situation. Abubakar was getting ready to fight in WSOF, and I had another student fighting there as well. Abubakar went through the entire preparation with us, but the other guy didn't. When we got there, I told the coach, Coach, can you work his corner with me too? He said, you know, Khabib, I haven't seen his preparation. I don't know what he's capable of. He didn't train under me. But since you're asking, I'll do it. But for the future, remember, I don't really like to corner guys I haven't prepared. I didn't understand him then, but now I do. This was 2016 or maybe 2017. I don't want to be wrong. And now I understand. Now when people ask me, I'm like, I didn't prepare you. I don't know how ready you are. I'm not ready to go in there and give all my energy to someone who didn't go through camp with me. Now I understand that. At that time, I told the coach, can you come out and corner him with me? He said, no problem. We went out there. Abubakar won his fight, and the other guy's fight Ended in a draw, but that's not really what I'm getting at. I've come to the point where if I haven't trained someone for two, three, or four months, I don't like to corner them because they didn't go through a full training camp, and I don't know how they'll respond in the third, fourth, or fifth round. I don't know how he prepared. I don't know how ready he is to go into those deep waters. That's why I try not to corner just anyone. I learned that from Javier.

So you need to know he can go into those deep waters.

How deep he can go. I need to know exactly what he's capable of.

What can you say about one of the greatest fighters and athletes ever, Daniel DC Cormier, who you train with? You guys joke around all the time, so it's easy to forget how great he really is. What can you say about him as a training partner, as a coach, as a person?

When we talk about DC, we have to go back to 2004, 2008. He was a 2-time Olympian, he represented Team USA at the Olympic Games, and that carries a lot of weight in this sport, especially in the 96-kilo division. And he is a 2-time Olympian, Then he transitioned to MMA, won a few fights on the regional scene, went to Strikeforce, won fights there. They put him into the Grand Prix. He won the Grand Prix, became heavyweight champion, and then went to the UFC. When he moved to the UFC, he cut down to 205 pounds to make room for Cain Velasquez because they were best friends. Cain was the heavyweight champion. So he moved to 205, and they both became champions, one at light heavyweight and one at heavyweight. Later, when Cain lost the title, he moved to heavyweight and won there too. He's one of the most unique athletes who has ever lived. How many athletes do you know who competed at the World Championships, at the Olympic Games, in freestyle wrestling, then transitioned to MMA, and became Strikeforce Champion, UFC Light Heavyweight Champion, and UFC Heavyweight Champion. And he's also remembered for his rivalry with one of the greatest, if not the greatest, Jon Jones. But by the time he fought Jon Jones, he was no longer at his peak. I think he was already pushing 40. Even though we have this Friendly, joking relationship because he's such a fun, interesting guy. As an athlete, though, he's truly one of a kind.

As a commentator too, he's very good with words.

Educated, well-mannered, strong. Yeah, he has so many great qualities. Daniel Cormier is one of those people. Who I think can truly inspire others.

So who usually wins when you guys wrestle, you or DC?

Well, he's got a few years on me, but back in my prime when I was competing at lightweight, I weighed around 84, 85, maybe 86 kilos. DC was always around 107, 110. Those are completely different weight classes. DC was better at wrestling, and as an Olympian too, all joking aside.

So you feel—

Back then it was really tough, of course, but now it's different. Now I can go after him. But I learned so much from Cormier, honestly, so much. As a person, a wrestler, and a fighter. You know, we spent our best years together at AKA. From 2012 to 2020, we've shared so many memories and moments together as well.

I just think it's a shame that people don't talk about him as one of the top five, top ten.

Well, top ten for sure. One of the top ten greatest, no question.

Absolutely.

Yeah, I definitely think so.

It's a shame, but you see this in football and in other sports too. One rivalry can overshadow an entire legacy. For DC, it's Jon Jones.

Well, Jon Jones was the better athlete, there's no doubt about that, but DC was right there with him. Yes, Jon Jones won, but DC gave him a real fight. He was that very person, you know, who actually made Jon Jones train harder. People shouldn't forget that. I'm sure Jon Jones prepared for that fight Like it was the hardest fight of his life.

Well, we've talked about different athletes, about Umar, but now let's talk about Islam Makhachev, one of your closest brothers who's at the very top of the world. You've known each other, you've trained together for more than 20 years. In your opinion, what makes him such a special wrestler and fighter? Why has he reached such heights? Why is he a great fighter?

Well, let's start with the fact that Islam has been doing this his whole life, since childhood. And I've known him since childhood too. We went to the same school, lived in the same neighborhood, trained at the same gym, and he was my father's student. And it's worth mentioning, he was one of my father's favorite students.

Yes.

One of the best students. My father saw in him this potential for greatness in how hard he trained. That's what I was talking about at the beginning of the podcast, when you go into the dark, uncomfortable room and stay there for a long time, no matter how hard it gets. He knew how to make sacrifices. He was very disciplined. Nobody reaches this level by accident. It's impossible without exceptional natural gifts, and he has them. He's gifted. Allah blessed him with those gifts, and he's deeply devoted to what he does. We basically grew up together, right? I'm 3 years older than Islam, and I was always a little bigger. A little older than him, so when we were amateurs, I competed in slightly heavier weight classes, but we worked together a lot, and Islam benefited tremendously from training with me. We trained together for many years, and he never had to go anywhere to find a sparring partner because he always had one in the gym. So I developed by training with the older guys in the gym, the stronger guys, the better guys, When I was young. Then, when they left, I was the one in front. Islam kept growing, growing, growing. Now I left, Islam is the one in front, and now other guys are developing through him. This is a kind of chain that exists in a gym, in a training system that produces the best fighters in the world. And in this chain, Islam was always behind me. If I was behind someone, Islam was behind me. Now others are following: Islam, Usman, Amru, and other guys. You could put them against any of the best fighters in the world right now, and they would perform very well. So in this chain we've had since 2003, and now it's already 2026, that's 23 years. Islam was the one coming up behind me. And now there are younger guys coming up behind Islam, and it's no secret that Islam will turn 35 in October. But what makes me happy is that there are younger guys coming up behind him. I left, Islam stepped in. One day Islam will leave too, and others will take his place. And this cycle, it never ends. It keeps going, and it keeps pulling the next generation forward. At the beginning, a lot of people are involved, but as you gradually climb higher, higher, and higher, the road gets narrower and fewer and fewer people remain. And alongside Islam, a lot of guys were developing while training with me, but Islam made it all the way because of his work ethic, his discipline, and, uh, let's call it sacrifice. He gave up a lot to reach this level. This isn't easy. You have to make sacrifices. You have to make sacrifices. You have to give up parties. You have to sacrifice sleep. You have to sacrifice your time. There are so many things you have to give up. You have to dedicate your entire life to this sport. Putting aside all the things that can distract you, you train, you sleep, you eat, you wake up, and then you do it all over again. Only then can you reach the level that Islam reached. That's what makes him unique.

Were there any small but interesting differences between you and Islam, psychologically speaking?

There are many. Psychologically, he's very solid too. I've been around him through so many training camps and so many fights. He's built very strong mentally. Of course, we're different in certain things, but in terms of our fighters' attitude toward their work, we have a lot in common. A lot.

You also train a lot.

Yeah, absolutely. A lot.

And I think he— well, first I have to say, I watched you train yesterday, and it made me really happy to see that you still love this so deeply. You know, it's hard to love something for such a long time.

People finish and move on. Yes, they retire and move on. But me, it's been 6 years since I retired, and I still haven't let go of wrestling, of competition. I still go to the gym, do cardio, Live, wrestle, grapple. I never let it go, it's still with me. And yesterday I told you that last week I did 200 minutes of live grappling. This week is a little different though because I'm just focused on Umar, traveling and everything that comes with that. So this week it's going to be less. Still I wrestle, I don't let go, I love it, I love this energy, I love that feeling after wrestling. You wrestle, let's say, 40 minutes. Yesterday, I still wanted more. Just now, I wrestled with you, with Islam, maybe 20 minutes, but still, it's not enough to get that feeling, that 100% feeling. I need around 40 minutes of wrestling, something like that. I don't think most people listening to us will understand that. But I think some people watching, especially grappling and jiu-jitsu fans, will understand me.

Well, to be honest, sometimes there are cameras around you, and for me at least, that's harder. I like it when there are none.

I usually train with no cameras. With you was one of the rare occasions when I come to the gym and You allow. When I allow it, yes.

Thanks for that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is very, very rare for me. Even with Embedded, with UFC, with everyone who comes, I always say, don't film.

Thank you, brother. I don't know why, but cameras get in the way for me because this sport, this preparation, it happens here. And that whole world where celebrities matter, it gets in the way.

Yes, it gets in the way, but 99.9% of our training sessions happen without cameras.

Well, thank you, brother. Let me ask you this. A lot of people say you're number one, the greatest of all time. Do you think Islam has a chance to become the greatest MMA fighter of all time?

Well, I've never said that, and I never set out to become number one. Or to become the greatest athlete and so on. I never had that. My goal was always to become the best in my sport, to become a world champion, to prove to myself that I could do it. But it's hard to choose just one person. Even now, look, there's always going to be St-Pierre, there's always going to be Demetrius Johnson, there's always going to be Jon Jones, there's always going to be Fedor. If people want to include me In that conversation, if Islam gets into that conversation, if there's Cain Velasquez, Cormier, and so on, I'd be happy about that. And that's my goal, that someone from our team, from the people closest to me, gets there too. If Jon Jones is there, why can't Islam be there? If Demetrious Johnson is there with 11 title defenses, why can't Islam be there? It's a good question.

Why not?

I'd like him to break all those records, to overtake Jon Jones, Demetrius Johnson, and St-Pierre, no matter how much respect I have for them. Islam has a chance, but time is starting to run out a little. This worries me because, for example, Jones fought at light heavyweight and now at heavyweight. Time is a little kinder to those divisions, Even at 38, you can still compete at the heavier weights. You don't need the same reaction speed and all that. But when you compete in lighter weight classes, 155, 170, age really catches up. I think active fighters, retired fighters, wrestlers, athletes, especially those who competed in these weight classes, will understand what I'm talking about. When you're 35, and when you're 32, and when you're 38, you're a totally different athlete.

From where you are now, you can see the entire fight business, and you know Dana White very well. I'd say he's one of those rare geniuses in sports business, in business, period. I don't think the UFC would exist without Dana White. There are important people there, of course, but he's really at the center of it all. What can you say about him? What qualities, what traits have made him such a successful businessman?

First of all, I think, if you look at it, I also kind of— well, not kind of, I understand his position a little. I also ran my own league for a couple of years. I know what the relationship between a promoter— well, a league owner and the fighters is like. Not just as a fighter dealing with a league owner. I've been on both sides of it. He's very good at separating business from personal relationships. For him, the two never, never overlap. He draws a clear line between them. In business, he's extremely cold-blooded. He's made decisions, some major decisions, regardless of whether people like them or not. And those decisions, they were best for the league and for the UFC. He always had that mentality, you know, like in those mafia movies where family comes first.

Right? Mm-hmm.

Well, for him, the UFC always came first. That's the only way he was able to push that brand forward. Of course, a lot of people contributed to that success. There were a lot of them. You have to give credit to Bruce Buffer, to Joe Rogan, to the commentators who were there. There were a lot of things that made the UFC unique, but the cherry on top was always Dana. Dana did an incredible job promoting the UFC, and he still does. No matter what, the UFC is always there. You know, no matter how unsuccessful a particular event might be, the UFC is still the UFC. When they go into a new market outside the United States, even if a show doesn't go so well, people will still come back for the next event simply because it's the UFC. Over the last 30-plus years, they've established themselves as the premier MMA league in the world, and they put on the best fights. So in that respect, I think a huge part of the credit goes to Dana. The fact that the UFC has come this far is a major achievement.

Building a league like that is incredibly difficult.

Yeah, a lot of people have money and a lot of people have tried. Many have come in, but building what the UFC has built is extremely hard. And what they've achieved now with Paramount, that's something unique. It's a unique achievement. In just 30 years, they've grown to a level that some entire sports needed 100 or 150 years to reach. And you have to give credit where it's due, and that credit goes to one person, Dana White. So I think that his genius as a promoter, the way he promotes and pushes fights and pushes his league as a whole, That is just remarkable, in my opinion. That's something a lot of people could learn from him.

You mentioned Joe Rogan. You know, he's a friend of mine. I love listening to his podcast, but I've never actually heard the two of you have a conversation together. Do you think that's something that could happen in the future?

Yes, of course.

I know you have a great deal of respect for him, and he has a great deal of respect for you. I can't wait to hear the two of you talk.

Same here. If we're talking about the people most responsible for promoting the UFC, I'd put Dana first. But second place, without question, goes to Joe Rogan. It's honestly hard to imagine the UFC without him. It'll be hard when he's no longer part of it. And what he's achieved in his own field, what he's achieved in podcasting, he's the best. And what he's built, the way he commentates, the way he communicates, His knowledge, his charisma, the way he carries a conversation. I think a lot of people could learn from him. And as for me going on his podcast, I think it's inevitable. God willing, if we're given the time and the health, we'll have a lot to talk about. There are so many different topics we could discuss together. So a conversation with Joe Rogan would be very interesting. I'd definitely like to talk to him.

I agree. But it's interesting, right now you and I are speaking Russian.

Yes.

Language is a tricky thing.

Yeah, exactly. With him, you need to come prepared.

Yes.

Because if you show up unprepared, he will just eat you alive. You have to be ready. It's a mental battle too.

Yeah. And by the way, you know, you've mentioned a few times that, um, you'd like to improve your Arabic. Language is such an interesting thing. It opens doors to understanding. It allows you to understand culture and history on a much deeper level.

Absolutely. Without the language, it's very difficult. I'm starting to study Arabic now, but I've been reading the Quran since I was a child. I know the alphabet very well, the pronunciation rules. I can read it well. But the Quran and Arabic as a spoken language are different. I wouldn't say they are drastically different, but they are different. If you want to speak it conversationally, you need to study grammar and learn it in a different way.

I'd also like to ask you about Ali, Ali Abdaalaziz. He's such a central figure. He represents so many champions. What do you respect about him? What do you think makes him a genius? Because he's such a unique person.

Well, I met Ali in 2014. We've been working together ever since. Over the years, a lot of fighters came to him through me, a lot of guys. And in all this time, in the 12 years we've known each other, I don't— I can barely remember any fighters leaving him except maybe a couple. But hundreds of fighters have worked with him, hundreds of fighters, and so many guys still keep in touch with him, and he has very good relationships with them. I'd also like to note that Ali, you know, he has one unique quality. People either really love him or really hate him. You can't just be neutral about him, you know, like, yeah, I know Ali, he's all right. No one will say about him, well, you know, I know him. He's a good guy. You'll have strong feelings for him. Either you hate him or you really love him. And I am in that category of people who really— how do I put it— who are very fond of him.

Yeah.

And I have a good relationship with him. I know his family. I know his children. His kids grew up before my eyes. When I first met him, he only had 2 or 3 children. Now he has more. This is the kind of person he is. You need to get to know him better to really appreciate him, and he will stand by you until the very end. And yeah, of course, there are people who have mixed feelings about him, but that's my point. It's hard to feel indifferent about Ali.

Yeah.

I know Ali, he's a very good guy. No, it's— It's different with him. People will either tell you, I know Ali and I absolutely love him, or, I know Ali and I can't stand him. So—

So it's fair to say that most people who—

Yes, yes.

Who really know him and work with him tend to stay with him for life.

Yes.

And respect him. That's important. And his judo isn't bad either.

It was.

He showed me.

It was.

It was, it was.

Oh, right, you were just wrestling yesterday.

All right, let's talk about football now. I want to ask you something, and I need to be careful here because after yesterday, I realized just how much you know about the game. I can't even pretend I know what I'm talking about anymore. I need to tread carefully.

Yes, if we're gonna go there, yeah, don't make any mistakes. I hope you did your research.

I'm shaking now.

You prepared?

Wait, we could talk about A lot of interesting teams. You talked about the moment when you fell in love with football. That was the Champions League final in 1998. It was Real Madrid against Juventus. It was the moment when you realized that Real Madrid was your team, the club you've continued to love and support ever since.

Yeah.

Tell me about that very first moment when you watched the game with your father. What do you remember? You know, this is such an important sport for you, for millions, hundreds of millions, billions of people.

Billions, yes.

What do you remember most about that game, and what did you fall in love with?

Well, first of all, my father was a huge football fan. He was a good player himself. When we lived in the village, they played almost every day. Football has always been very popular where I'm from. The kids, The young people, everyone plays. In fact, we still have this tradition in the village. As long as I can remember, it was a tradition for each street to put together its own team for a tournament with group stages, then the quarterfinals, semifinal, and the final. So, it became a real tradition, and everyone would— everyone there follows football, the kids, the young people. And my father played too. Whenever there was a big match on, I'd always sit with him in front of the television and watch. The first football memory I have that's really clear and conscious goes back to 1996. I couldn't tell you where we were watching it. I don't remember, but I remember sitting next to my father. It was the European Championship semifinal, Germany and England. England lost on penalties at home, and Germany advanced to the final. A few days later, we watched the final as well. We were at someone's place. We didn't have a TV at the time, or maybe our channel wasn't showing the match. I don't remember. We watched it at somebody's place. It was Germany against the Czech Republic. Germany won that final. I remember Oliver Bierhoff coming off the bench and scoring. That whole period is still very vivid in my memory. After that, I kept watching football whenever I could. And I remember the 1998 Champions League final. I watched it with my father. Again, I don't remember where we watched it, but it was the final, 1-0. Real Madrid won. I can still remember the players who were on the pitch. I was obsessed with football myself. I'd spend hours, days outside playing with a ball. Sometimes on my own, sometimes with a group. There was a period when actually in the settlement where I lived, in the village, I was pretty much the only kid who had a football. So the older guys would come over. I was maybe 9 or 10, and these were boys who were 15 or 16. They'd say, Habib, bring the ball out.

Mm-hmm.

But I'd give them a condition for bringing the ball out. When you're 10 years old, nobody is putting you on a team with 15-year-olds you know. The age gap is just too big. So I'd say, if I bring the ball, I'm playing. They'd go, all right, bring it out, and I'd get to play. And the kids my own age didn't make the team. You know how it is when there are a lot of kids around. Of course, the older boys would take charge. They decide who's playing. Normally, when you're 10 and they're 15, there was no chance you'd get picked. But I was very lucky. I had the ball, so I always made the team and got to play with them. That's where it all started, really. You know, that love for football started in my childhood. My father and I always watched the big matches together. I even remember the 1998. I remember being somewhere and literally running home so I wouldn't miss the opening ceremony of the tournament in France. I was just running. I ran to my grandfather's house and said. Grandpa, put on Channel 1. I think it was Channel 1 that was showing the opening. Ronaldo was playing in that tournament. So I sat there watching, and my grandfather looked at me. I was 10. He looked at me and said, why are you interested? I said, I want to watch. I sat and watched. The Brazilians won both matches back then, I think. They won against Morocco and lost to the Norwegians.

The opening match was Brazil against Scotland, 2-1, right?

Yeah, 2-1. So, basically, from childhood, I already had that love for football, and then it just grew. I started watching the Champions League, the Euros, the World Cup, and later the domestic leagues, mostly the Premier League. So, that's where this passion comes from.

And what about national teams? Brazil was your team growing up, right? That legendary Brazil team.

I like Brazil, yes. I also like the Netherlands. Those national teams, Brazil and the Netherlands, those were the ones that really appealed to me.

And what about clubs? What were the main teams that you supported?

It varied. I never had one national team that I'd say was my favorite team.

Oh, you didn't?

I didn't. Today, I don't feel the same way about the Netherlands. But back then, I really like that Dutch team, a lot. Van der Sar, Reiziger, Van Bronckhorst, Overmars, Davids, Zedov, Van Nistelrooy, Mackay. That old lineup, Kluivert. Now it's not the same. That era is gone. They just don't have players like that anymore. In that sense, there's been a bit of a drop-off for the national team. The same with Brazil. Back then they were incredibly strong, but today it's not at that same level anymore. But when it comes to the club, the club I follow, that's Real Madrid. That's the one. But if we're talking about leagues overall, then because of the competition and the way the league is played, I'd say the English Premier League.

And in the Premier League, do you follow Man U, City?

Not in a way where I have one team, no. I like them. They're both top clubs. They're big clubs. I watch them. I follow them. It just depends. But it's not like I have one favorite. I do like City, Manchester City. In recent years, they've been winning almost everything. They've dominated for the last 10 years. But if we look more closely at Manchester City, there's been a bit of a dip over the last 2 seasons. And then you also have the rise of Arsenal in the last couple of seasons, a very well-structured team under Arteta. They're really on the rise this season. They're leading the league, doing well in the Champions League. They're leading domestically as well. So I don't know how far they'll go, but they're aiming for the treble this season.

I want to ask, because we lived through such a moment in sports history that we might never see anything like it again. I'm talking about this rivalry between Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Of course, since you love Real Madrid, You know, you naturally love Cristiano Ronaldo. But what can you say about it? A lot of people call him the absolute best. And for many, Messi is number one. There's also a very good book about their rivalry. I recommend it. It basically tells the story of modern football through their rivalry. Messi versus Ronaldo, one rivalry, almost 20-year era.

Yeah.

2 GOATs in an era that remade the world's game. So it's been 20 years. So what can you say? Why do you consider Cristiano Ronaldo a great footballer? What do you like about him? Let's start with Ronaldo.

Well, he's a natural-born athlete. He is. God gave him that athleticism and he managed to maintain it. There are many who have lost it. There are many players who have talent, Physical ability, but they are lazy. But he has it all: athleticism, talent, hard work, everything. And then there's this: he played in Manchester. He moved. He shone in Portugal at Sporting, then moved to Manchester. And it's not easy to make your mark at Manchester. From 2003 to 2008, he became a star there. And what he achieved in 2008. Just look at how many individual trophies he won and how much he won with his team. You can even look it up. Just search what Cristiano Ronaldo achieved in 2008. It's simply unbelievable. And then he moved from Manchester. He transferred to an even more difficult club, Real Madrid. 9 years at Real Madrid.

Mm-hmm.

5 years at Manchester United, then 9 years at Real Madrid. That's about 15 years. You're under constant pressure at the 2 biggest clubs in the history of football. And at both clubs, at both clubs, he became the best. That's very difficult. Yeah, look here.

3 Premier League titles came during his time at Manchester United.

Look at 2008 specifically, what he accomplished then.

He won the Premier League, he won the UEFA Champions League.

Individually, he won the Golden Boot. Top scorer in the Champions League, the Premier League, every major trophy.

Right.

But the point is that at Manchester, he spent 5 years performing at the highest level under enormous pressure. Then he spent 9 years at Real Madrid.

Yeah.

After that, he moved to Juventus, but only for a short time. And this is the part people tend to forget. He spent 3 seasons at Juventus, and he also won both the Italian Championship and the Super Cup there and scored 100 goals. And just the fact that for 20 years, let's say 22 or 23 years, he's been at the highest level. Look at how many goals he's scored, and now he's closing in on 1,000. Will Messi ever reach that number is the big question. Next season, he scores 40 goals in a season, and he's less than 40 goals away from the 1,000-goal mark. That's how unique he is in that regard. But Just because I'm a Real Madrid fan doesn't mean I downplay what Messi has achieved. It's impossible to downplay what Messi's done. You have to give him the credit he deserves. But I wouldn't want to put one of them above the other. If I'm being honest, both of them watching each other, competing with each other, they stayed there. Would Messi be Messi without Ronaldo? Would Ronaldo be Ronaldo without Messi? Those are big questions. I'm convinced they watched each other closely. They always have, and they still do now. For almost 20 years, they've been watching each other, pushing each other, and constantly improving. They were already the best, but that drove them even further. By competing against one another, they pulled so far ahead of the rest.

Yes.

Whether you're talking about achievements, trophies, and all that. And in that sense, their rivalry truly elevated the entire sport. More people started following football because of them, watching the games. So I believe both of them deserve tremendous respect.

Yeah, I'd say I completely agree with you that if Messi hadn't had Ronaldo and Ronaldo hadn't had Messi, yeah, would they have gone that far? I don't think so.

That's an open question.

I don't think so.

Yes.

But for me, there is nobody like Messi. His pure love for the game for its own sake.

You're a Barça guy?

Yes.

Oh, really? Yeah, I can tell from the way you're talking about it. The way you—

You got me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nothing against it, but—

Yes, sure.

Well—

I mean, Iniesta—

Xavi, Busquets, Iniesta— Puyol.

That was a legendary team.

Yes. No, but look, you can compare them like this. Iniesta, Xavi, Busquets, Messi. Ronaldinho, Piqué.

Ronaldinho, yes.

Ronaldinho. He was a bit earlier. That Barcelona team from roughly 2008 to 2012, that 4-year period, only one team in history can compare with them. Real Madrid from 2014 to 2018. They won in 2014, in 2016, 2017, and 2018. The only interruption was Barcelona's team with Neymar.

With Neymar, yes.

With Suárez and Messi, that was 2015. Well, let's leave that aside. But you know, with Modric, Kroos, Casemiro, Ronaldo, Benzema, Marcelo, Carvajal, Casillas, and this team compared to Víctor Valdés, Piqué, Puyol, Dani Alves, Jordi Alba, Busquets, Xavi, Iniesta, Villa, and Messi, for me, those are the 2 greatest teams. Different generations, different squads. For me, they truly represent true dream teams at football, at club level. That's the comparison. But if we look at the national team level, you could pick France in 1998.

Yes.

That 1998 France team is very close to a perfect team. And also, 2002 Brazil. In 2002, they were extremely strong.

Yes, you had Ronaldo.

You had Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho, Roberto Carlos, Cafu.

Right.

You had Emerson, you had, um, Kleberson, I think Ruki Jr., Lúcio, Edmilson. Um, and beyond those superstar names, there were also very strong players who kind of stayed in the shadow of those stars.

Mm-hmm.

Stayed in their shadow. So Brazil 2002, France 1998, and then there was, then later Spain from Euro 2008, the 2010 World Cup, and Euro 2012. That period too, Spain, the Spanish national team was close to perfect.

I wanted to go back to France. You mentioned Zidane. I really, really respect and admire him. There was this moment, psychologically very interesting, almost Shakespearean moment in his career when it ended with— ended with that— how do you even call it?

A headbutt. A headbutt to the chest.

What's interesting is, I don't know, looking at your fight with Conor, when emotion builds up, for most of it you're focused on the game, but in the end you let that emotion out. What do you think about that headbutt?

I wouldn't want to judge him. Wouldn't want to be some kind of judge of what he did. No. Well, he did what he did. We don't know what was really going on there. But as a player, of course, he was unique. He won the Euros, the World Cup, reached finals, won the Champions League, the Spanish and the Italian championships and cups too. It's just unique. And the way he played, I just always remembered him for the way sweat was just pouring off him, the way he ran, how he gave everything in every single match. He had incredible stamina, incredible endurance. I think a lot of people listening to this podcast may not have watched Zidane playing live. When I say live, I mean watching him play in real time.

Right.

I personally didn't see his games live. I was younger then. But I did watch many of his matches later on. I remember the goals he scored in World Cup finals in 1998 and 2006, especially the headers, and even that penalty. The Champions League final, European Championships, the way he played, the way he handled the ball, the way the ball was glued to his feet, his movements, and then his charisma. It's rare to find all of that in one player. You don't see that combination often. There are many very good players, but sometimes they're just not that interesting to watch. You know what I mean? I don't want to give specific examples because someone might take it the wrong way, so I won't name anyone. But there are players who are phenomenal in terms of their— Skills. Physical attributes, fast, explosive, effective, but they don't have charisma, that energy that makes people want to watch them. And I don't think that's their fault. But with Zidane, everything came together. You always wanted to watch him play. You always want to watch Ronaldo play. You always want to watch Beckham play. You want to watch Edgar Davids running around the field in those glasses, his hair bouncing behind him.

Right?

You still wanted to watch the way Barthez played in goal. No matter how many bizarre goals he conceded, you still wanted to watch him play. Or Oliver Kahn, the way he stood in goal and directed the whole team. The way he would rush out to the ball, the way strikers were afraid of him. I mean, so many strikers have admitted that they were afraid if they found themselves one-on-one with Oliver Kahn. In the penalty area. You always wanted to watch Roberto Carlos take a free kick or storm down the left flank.

Mm-hmm.

You always wanted to see Cafú or Michel Salgado make an overlapping run. The way Vieira stood there as the defensive midfielder, or somebody like Maldini, or like Rio Ferdinand, or somebody like that, you wanted to watch Casillas in goal. So, you know, for me, and maybe for our generation, those players had something special.

Can you try to explain what charisma is? Like you said, there are good players, and then there is Zidane.

It's very difficult to explain. You either have it or you don't. Personality, right?

Yes, but there are so many different forms of it. Zidane, in a way, almost moved slowly. In a way—

But he'd carry the ball from midfield into attack incredibly quickly. So, it's very hard to put into words, hard to explain it.

And both Ronaldos had that. I mean, the Brazilian Ronaldo too, the way he played in those World Cups.

Yes.

It was just phenomenal.

'98, 2002, even in 2006 when he was already past his peak, he was so fascinating to watch. Seriously, how many people turned on their TVs just to watch Ronaldo? People knew that was it, that in 2010 he wouldn't be playing. And even in 2006, he wasn't really in his prime. But still, so many people turned on the TV just to watch him play. And Zidane 2006 was really, you know, the peak of that whole generation of legends that had been building since '98, 2000, 2002, and '04. All the cream of the crop came in. Most of them weren't at their physical peak anymore, but the names were still there. Honestly, I think that For football fans, I'd recommend just looking up the teams and the lineups from the 2006 World Cup. Look at the rosters. Every single team had stars you wanted to watch.

Speaking of teams, what style of football do you like? You prefer short passing, long balls, individual plays, you know, like Maradona carrying the ball, or of course Cristiano Ronaldo taking the ball and scoring himself?

Mostly. Those who take the initiative.

You like that?

Yeah, definitely. I like players who are willing to take the initiative. I was recently talking to Zlatan about this, and he said, it drives me crazy when I have players on my team who, when you pass them the ball, they immediately get rid of it. They don't want to take the initiative. When you have 3 or more players on the team, if there are 3 people on the team who are not afraid to make mistakes, That's usually enough. They take the initiative, take control of the game, drive the team forward, make mistakes, but they keep trying. And then there are others who hide, he says. They get the ball and immediately pass it to someone else. Just don't give it to me. Not me. Not me. They just want to get rid of the ball.

It's like...

You know, it's like something one of Zidane's coaches once said. If you don't know what to do with the ball, give it to Zidane. He'll figure it out. So, you see, that's the thing. It's a quality not every player has. You're taking the ball, you're taking responsibility, you're taking the initiative. You are not afraid to fail. You're not afraid to make a mistake. Cristiano had a moment like that. He missed a penalty, and later in the same match, he stepped up to take another one. Think about that. You take the first penalty, you miss it. Then another penalty comes along, and you still step up to take it. Because if you miss 2 penalties in the same game, you're under a lot of pressure, right? But that's the point. You're not afraid to fail. As a leader, you take the initiative, and you're willing to take risks. That's honestly the beauty of it, the beauty of sports in general. The bigger the risk, the bigger the potential for greatness. If there's no risk, then there's no— you can't make, can't put yourself in the category of athletes people will talk about as some of the best ever.

Especially when it's a high-level game like the World Cup and—

Yes, the more risk, the sweeter the victory. There must be risk.

That's why they often speak of Maradona as a great player. There are many great players. He's great.

One of them, yeah. For many reasons.

But one reason is that he kind of carried the team on his shoulders.

He took the initiative and carried them. That's when he led Napoli, you know? When he led Napoli to the league title. Who knew Napoli then? Maradona came from Barcelona to Napoli and made them champions. And the whole stadium was named after him. Many guys played in Napoli, but there was never anyone like Maradona. And recently I saw somewhere, or I think someone pointed out, the pressure on the guys who are transferring to Napoli. Whoever you are, you will always be in Maradona's shadow. And you stay in the shadow because fans will never give you the credit you might deserve because they will always compare you to him. Are you Maradona or not? And if you're not Maradona, you will never get full recognition.

I want to say that one of the things that makes Messi great, I think, is that he really had to live in such a shadow of Maradona, especially with the World Cup.

Yes.

It's not easy.

And he came out of it.

Hard to emerge from that shadow.

Yes. And he won the World Cup, yeah. In that sense, you have to give Messi his due. I'm addressing the Real Madrid fans now. Ours, yours, both sides.

You're explaining it to them.

Yeah, yeah. I got you. Most of them, I think, even if they don't like Barcelona, they still recognize Messi's greatness.

I know that you met Zlatan, you talked to him. I think he's one of the most self-confident people in football, in the world in general. What do you think about this confidence? Of course, he's joking around a little bit, but I think he really believes in himself.

Well, yeah, he does. He does. I've known Zlatan for years now. We get along well, and I know his kids, and I like his personality. I like his confidence. I mean, he's a unique player. There are not many Zlatans in football. You know, wherever he played, he always scored. He's a goalscorer. He is that kind of center forward, and he always carried the team. He was a leader wherever he transferred. It doesn't matter. Milan, Inter, Juventus when he moved to LA Galaxy, or Paris Saint-Germain. He was a leader everywhere he went, with the national team, with his clubs. He was always the guy driving the team forward, taking the initiative. And honestly, he cemented his place as one of the greatest players to ever play the game. And yeah, maybe he was, um, When it comes to trophies, not individual achievements, but team honors, Sweden wasn't exactly the greatest team, and some of the clubs he played for didn't always win the biggest trophies, but as an athlete, as an individual, as a person, he is a very strong athlete.

We talked a lot about Dagestan, talked a lot about America. You're in Dubai a lot these days. Do you like it there? Also, you have spoken very highly about Sheikh Hamdan. What do you like about Dubai? What do you like about this region? And what do you respect about Sheikh Hamdan?

Our team's been in Dubai for 7 to 8 years now. We train at the Nad Al Sheba Sports Complex. The NAS Sports Complex, this is under Sheikh Hamdan's office. It's like his home, his place. We train there, we eat there, we live there. Sheikh Hamdan helps us with everything and takes care of us. The way he treats us, what he does for us, his support is just limitless. He supports us in everything. And it's not just 1, 2, or 3 years. It's already been 7 or 8 years. And I am very, very grateful to him. The way he welcomed us, took us in, and helped us, continues to help. It's hard to put it into words how grateful we are. Our entire team is very grateful to him. And he knows it. So in general, Dubai has become— actually, the Emirates, Dubai and Abu Dhabi, have become like a second home for us. And so it happened that over the last 6 or 7 years, the UFC has been holding events in Abu Dhabi and the PFL has been putting on events in Dubai. These are 2 of the biggest MMA organizations in the world. And a lot of our guys compete there. We arrive before the fight, we stay, we do training camps, they compete. We are incredibly fortunate that we have support at the government level. In Abu Dhabi, we've been supported by Sheikh Mohammed, Sheikh Takhnoon, and Sheikh Mansour. And in Dubai, Sheikh Hamdan has really taken us in like his own team. Like younger brothers. In that respect, we've been incredibly fortunate, and our entire team is deeply grateful for their support.

And they've created a country that has become one of the world's central hubs. People from everywhere travel there.

It's unique, right? The local population is only around 1.5 million people, actually even less than that. But You know, there's such an influx of tourists, people, business people, major events, and everything happening in terms of business and sports is just incredible. What's happening in Dubai and Abu Dhabi is— it's like nothing else. The only places you could really compare it to are major global cities like New York, London, Paris, Tokyo. But those are huge metropolitan areas with populations of well over 20 million people, And they have centuries of history behind them. And here, they've built cities, an entire country really, in just a few decades and turned it into a kind of magnet. It's like a magnet that attracts everyone. The country's location, its logistics, the sheer number of people coming in, not just visiting, but wanting to move there, live there, and start businesses. It's remarkable. It's a unique place in today's world. With everything that's happening around the globe right now, this country really stands out because of the opportunities it offers. It's unique in that sense.

Now I'd like to ask you this. For you, your Muslim faith and God, it's obviously central to your life. And to who you are. Can you explain what role God plays in your life?

Well, first of all, I was born, raised, and brought up in a Muslim family, in a Muslim community. Since childhood, religion's always been the most important thing for me. And when I say religion, the first thing I mean is salah, namaz. And my entire life in general, my daily routine, the way I lived, trained, studied, and everything else has always been built around salah. The rest was scheduled around it. Even today, when I was choosing time for this podcast, I knew we'd be talking for a couple of hours, so I deliberately picked a time right after the midday prayer. I pray, come here, finish up here with you. And then go pray again. That's how my life's been and still is, and that's how it will continue to be, I hope. I've always tried to organize my life around worship because first and foremost, my purpose in this life is to worship the one God. Everything that happens after that is, uh, it's secondary, so to speak. And faith in God and learning more and just striving to get closer to God—that continues throughout our entire lives. So, in that regard, I'm very grateful to the Almighty for opening this door of understanding and reflection for me, for helping me realize that we are all servants of God. And that our purpose in life is to serve one God.

And as you were explaining, that helped you in your career in the sense that, you know—

Psychologically?

By keeping you from letting success go to your head.

That helped me with everything. I've always placed my only hope in the Almighty. Whatever situation I might face, I've always believed that only the Almighty can truly make it easier for me. And when it comes to not letting success go to your head, not becoming proud, not becoming full of yourself, religion and my faith in Allah have helped me with that too. I truly believe that only faith can help a person get through life's hardest trials. And sometimes I think about people who are Yes. Who suffer the loss of a loved one, someone very close to them. For example, when I lost my father, I remember thinking to myself, if I didn't believe in the Almighty, if I didn't have faith in God and understand that it was predestined that we all come into this world and then leave it, that no one stays here forever, that no one belongs to anyone, And we all belong to the Almighty, and that we will all return to Him. I don't know how I would have coped with it. I'm a very emotional person. I think it would have been extremely difficult for me to go through all of that without faith. In that sense, I feel fortunate to have this understanding.

So faith really helped you when you lost your father.

This was the only thing that helped. Nothing else worked. I know a couple of people who have lost someone very close to them, and they struggle to accept it. They would ask, why? Why? Why? So many questions. I told them, to answer that question, you need to go deeper into religion and try to understand why were you even born in the first place, and why do these thoughts even come into your head? And what if you didn't have any thoughts at all? What if you couldn't think, couldn't understand anything? These thoughts, this awareness, your mind, your abilities— none of that was there before. Then it appeared. Why? That's the question. None of us existed. Then we were born. We were little. We weren't aware of anything. We didn't remember anything. Then, little by little, we grew up and became adults. We became successful, became somebody. We became who we are. So why did all of this come specifically to you? There are so many questions like that. And so these questions are, let's say, a kind of guide through life. And for me, that's what religion is. It guides me and helps me.

You often say, Alhamdulillah. All praise to God. That's very powerful, that sense of gratitude. Can you tell us, can you explain why you say it so often?

You know the saying, the tongue speaks what the heart is full of. The way you speak shows what's in your heart. If you have something dark in your heart, your words will show it, no doubt. We all have some dark parts in our hearts. Every single person has them. Sometimes they come out in what we say, how we express ourselves, what we share with people, and so on. Everyone has that. But if your heart is mostly good and pure, then that will also be reflected in your speech. And And I just like praising the Almighty and giving all the credit for my success back to Him, because everything we have is given to us by the Almighty. Throughout the history, there have been many people who made big mistakes after becoming successful, powerful, and wealthy. And they started saying, no, no, this happened to me because I'm so great, because I'm so I'm so intelligent because I had vision, because I've got the brains, because I'm extremely capable. That's why all of this came my way. But at the same time, there were many others who worked just as hard, who weren't any less intelligent, and, and the Almighty just didn't give it to them. He chose you and gave it to you. And you just have to give the credit back to Him. You shouldn't take the credit for yourself. That's what I believe, and it's something I've come to through studying my religion. I understand that everything the Almighty has given to me is not because of who I am. It's simply something God has given me as a test, to test me and, in the end, see which of my deeds outweigh the others. The good or the bad. Because as a believer, I believe that there will be judgment, and everything we have, everything we do, every action we take, we will be held accountable for it. There will be a day of judgment, there will be scales, and everything will be weighed.

What advice? Would you give young people about life and their careers? Millions of people are watching you and deeply respect you. What would you say about how to live your life? And, um, how do you find your path and stay on it?

Well, I wouldn't want to speak just from my own perspective. I'd rather bring people Back to the scripture, to what the Almighty said: Read. That's the first word revealed in the Holy Quran. The first command is read or اقرأ. So to everyone listening to or watching this podcast, I would want to bring them back to that. Read, meaning what? Educate yourself, observe, learn, improve. But don't stay in one place. And anything a person is truly looking for, if they genuinely want to find it, not just find an answer, but find the truth, they can reach it. But they can never reach it without reading. They need to read. When a person reads, what they read enters them into their body, their heart. Their mind, and it triggers a search. A search for knowledge begins inside them. But if you don't read, you won't find anything. Just listening to someone is one thing, but reading is something different. So my advice would be read and find within yourself the strength to come closer to one God and seek to understand why we were sent here in the first place. Today, you and me, we're almost the same age. So let's just think about this. For example, my grandfather on my mother's side passed away in 2003. Now it's 2026. He's been lying in the grave for 23 years. And then there was his grandfather, or let's say his great-grandfather, who also died and has been in the grave for over 100 years, roughly speaking. But what about people who died 2,000 years ago? They've been in the grave for 2,000 years. What's next? It's a good question, isn't it? They've just been in the grave all this time, and that's it. So, what was the purpose of their life? A person has been in the grave for 2,000 years, but maybe lived for 70 years. Roughly speaking, let's say 100. They lived for 100 years and have been in the grave for 2,000. So, what matters more, those 100 years or these 2,000 years? And what happens after those 2,000 years end? People believe different things. Whether there is a day of judgment or not, that's where the difference lies between a believer and a non-believer. After everyone is resurrected, there will be the day of judgment. There will be judgment, and after that, people will enter eternity. Eternity compared to eternity, what are two thousand years? They're nothing. And we live for let's say seventy years, and many people choose those seventy years over eternal life. And if a person understands that these 70 years they have here, roughly speaking 70 or 80 years, are meant to be used to prepare for what comes after, so that when the Day of Judgment arrives and after that judgment they can live forever, not in hell but in heaven, if that becomes their ultimate goal, then they will strive to do good deeds because they will fear the Day of Judgment. And that's really what life is about, preparing yourself for the Day of Judgment.

That's true. To truly understand life and its deeper meaning, you have to think about eternity. Only then can you really understand your role.

Actually, it can keep a person away from evil, from evil, and it can stop them from treating other people badly. It can hold a person back. But if you don't have that understanding, if a person lives completely convinced that there's nothing after death, what's there to stop him from doing evil just like that? What do you think? And on top of that, an even more dangerous combination: you become powerful, wealthy, and you become famous. What now? Suddenly every door is open to you. Just imagine a person like that. And on top of all that, he doesn't believe in the Day of Judgment. He doesn't believe he'll be held accountable for his actions. That's, you know, it's like a nuclear bomb. He can end up causing harm to people everywhere. But if you know that for everything you have here, you'll eventually have to answer, that there will be a Day of Judgment, And that you'll be called to account, and if you fail that test, will burn in hell forever. That'll make you rein yourself in a little. You'll have to take that into consideration. You'll have to tighten things up a little. You'll begin to understand that you're not nearly as important as the image you've created of yourself in your own mind. You start becoming more. As Americans say, down to earth.

Yes.

You, you become more grounded. You're not flying, you're walking on the ground.

You once put it beautifully, you can allow money and fame to stay in your hand but not in your heart. Yes. You've still got many years ahead of you, but you're already an example of someone who's become famous, made money, And remain the same person.

If money stays in your hands and not in your heart, that's a good thing. But the moment it gets into a person's heart, it corrupts them. Yeah. Once it's there, it's very difficult to pull it out of your heart. If you have wealth in your hands and use it properly for good causes, for the right purposes, for people in need, for your family, relatives, friends, people from your hometown, That's a good thing. But as soon as that wealth gets into your heart, it becomes very difficult to share it with others. And this is a very dangerous, very dangerous place for a person to end up. And I'm sorry, but as a believer, I believe that most people in hell will be wealthy.

One of the reasons millions of people find you so interesting to watch is that you're Constantly growing. First you were a great fighter, now you're becoming a leader. Your wisdom just keeps increasing. You're evolving as a person, but still the core values remain. It's good to see, inspiring for people. Money and fame haven't changed you. You're just growing as a human being, as you always have.

I hope it's in the right direction. It's just the thing is people only see the good. They don't see the bad.

True.

And we all have the good side and the bad side. Everyone, sadly. And especially when it comes to celebrities, we only see, we only show the best side of ourselves. Even when you post photos, you only post the good ones, the pictures where you look your best. So I hope that That the way people see me, as you pointed out, is the way I really am. Because it's difficult to judge yourself objectively. You're always biased when it comes to yourself. That's how it is. We tend to think highly of ourselves, right? You can't really see yourself objectively. We hide our flaws and put our best qualities on display. Sometimes people even start believing in a fake version of themselves. For me, I try to stay on the honest path throughout my life, to remain true to who I really am, and to show my true self to people. Maybe not everyone agrees with my behavior, my opinions, my worldview, or my attitudes toward Towards sports, religion, and other things. Not everyone shares my views. Not everyone is a fan of mine. There are people who, let's say, see me very differently. So I'm just, I've tried, I continue to try to be who I am. That's all. And I hope that that my ending will be a good one too. Well, you know, at least that's my hope.

You've stayed the same, but you've also grown. I mean, today you even managed to say something nice about Barça. So see, that's progress.

Yeah. Well done. Come on. Without Barcelona, there wouldn't be Real Madrid. If the Spanish league didn't have either Real Madrid or Barcelona, it just wouldn't be the same. They've been competing against each other for how many years? 120. It's hard to imagine Barcelona and Real Madrid without each other. And so is the Spanish league without that rivalry.

Yes.

It's impossible to imagine. So yeah, we have to give you some credit, but Real Madrid is the royal club. Come on. It's the best.

Yeah.

You know?

And thanks to both of them, we've been able to enjoy truly incredible football for so many years.

For so many years, yeah.

Khabib, brother, I don't even have the words to explain how honored I am that you're here talking with me today and showing me so much warmth. There's no way to fully express what you mean to millions of your fans around the world, including me. Thank you so much for everything. Thank you for this conversation.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Lex.

Thank you for listening to this conversation with Khabib Nurmagomedov. And again, Thank you. For everything. I love you all. Goodbye, my friends. See you next time.