Khabib Nurmagomedov: Dagestan, MMA, UFC, Islam, Conor, Fedor & Football | Lex Fridman Podcast #500

0:00 The following is a conversation with Khabib Nurmagomedov,

0:04 one of the greatest fighters of all time,

0:06 who retired from the UFC undefeated with a perfect twenty-nine and O record.

0:11 It was a huge honor for me to meet him,

0:15 to train together, and to have this deep conversation.

0:20 We had this conversation entirely in Russian.

0:24 This was my first time doing so on this podcast.

0:28 And even these words I'm saying right now are spoken in Russian.

0:32 So if you're hearing me in English,

0:34 you're actually listening to the English dub.

0:37 On YouTube, you can switch between language

0:40 audio tracks by clicking the settings gear icon,

0:43 then clicking audio track, and then selecting the language you prefer.

0:50 For the original Russian version, select Russian.

0:53 And for the English dub, select English.

0:57 Subtitles are also available in both languages.

1:01 The translation and dubbing are a collaborative effort of translators,

1:06 real human beings, including myself and AI.

1:11 Thanks to the incredible team at ElevenLabs for their help.

1:17 And now, please allow me to take this moment to say thank you

1:21 from the bottom of my heart for your love and support all these years.

1:26 I love you all.

1:28 This is the Lex Fridman Podcast.

1:30 And now, dear friends, here's Khabib Nurmagomedov.

1:34 Let's try in Russian if we can, like you suggested.

1:39 I can help you out if you need.

1:40 Yeah, thanks, brother.

1:41 I kind of feel it in my heart and soul,

1:44 but sometimes I can't find the right words.

1:47 I know, brother.

1:48 We got this.

1:49 Great.

1:50 Let's start from the beginning.

1:51 So that gym back in Dagestan where

1:54 you trained is legendary for its spartan conditions.

1:59 There was just one shower for seventy people, only cold water.

2:04 And yet, this humble little gym managed

2:07 to raise more than twenty world champions, including several UFC champions.

2:14 Can you try to explain or maybe reflect on what factors in that gym,

2:19 those training sessions, that life in Dagestan created so many champions?

2:25 Sure.

2:25 So we're talking about the gym, the one located in Makhachkala.

2:30 And Makhachkala, for the people who don't know, it's the capital of Dagestan.

2:33 This was back around the years from two thousand

2:36 to two thousand and ten, and even later on.

2:40 In twenty nineteen, we opened up a big gym,

2:43 a major facility that is still functioning to this day.

2:47 But before twenty nineteen,

2:49 we all actually trained in that gym where there was practically nothing.

2:53 It was just a school gym with nothing but mats,

2:56 a single punching bag, one climbing rope, and a kind of indoor basketball court.

3:04 And if we go even further back, before two thousand,

3:07 before we moved to Makhachkala, we lived in a village.

3:11 In the village, we had a gym right inside our house.

3:14 My father, he built a gym at home,

3:16 and he was training all the local village kids right there.

3:20 And there were times back when I was a child,

3:23 let's say when I was maybe six or seven years old,

3:26 I would occasionally wake up to the sound of, people training,

3:30 doing their drills right there in the gym.

3:34 You know, like with judo or freestyle when they're drilling,

3:37 one guy throwing another.

3:38 Those are my first conscious memories.

3:40 I was maybe five, six, seven years old at that time.

3:45 So my father set up this gym

3:47 in the village and trained local kids, including me,

3:50 my older brother, and all our close and distant relatives,

3:54 anyone who wanted to come.

3:55 A lot of kids came to him.

3:58 So you would wake up and there are these sounds.

4:00 Yeah.

4:01 Yeah.

4:01 Yeah.

4:01 You hear the hitting, the throwing over and over.

4:04 And my father's voice, how he's shouting,

4:08 giving instructions, pushing someone, coaching, teaching.

4:11 I lived with those sounds.

4:13 But that was in the village.

4:15 And later when we moved to Makhachkala, well,

4:19 you couldn't say the gym there was wow either.

4:22 There were only mats.

4:23 And of course, the most valuable thing an athlete can have, a coach, my father.

4:28 So he trained us there.

4:33 And to be honest, let's say, until I became a champion and had big success,

4:39 we never had a good big gym where we could, you know,

4:44 all take a shower together at the same time after training.

4:48 We always had just one shower for everyone, no proper amenities.

4:54 So your life story began in the mountains of Dagestan in Sildi,

4:58 then Kirovaul, and then Makhachkala.

5:02 And in all these situations, there are very interesting stories.

5:05 But one of the things I heard you say is

5:08 that the best results are born out of the worst conditions.

5:10 What can you say about that?

5:13 Philosophically, is it correct to say that comfort

5:15 is kind of the enemy for champions?

5:19 It depends on the sport.

5:20 For example, let's say in football, you have to have conditions.

5:24 You can't really play if there is practically no field.

5:27 Of course, you can play in the dirt, and it happens sometimes.

5:30 You can start there.

5:31 But when you are ten or twelve years old,

5:34 you already have to be at a certain level.

5:36 You must have conditions.

5:38 But if we look at our sport, then what is the most important thing?

5:43 The coach.

5:45 You also need sparring partners who will push

5:48 you in the gym, as they say, right?

5:50 And you need the mats.

5:52 Our sport is not expensive.

5:54 You just buy your wrestling shoes, singlets, shorts, a T-shirt.

5:59 And if there's a mat, you wrestle, you become a champion, you fight.

6:04 But when you live too well, let's say, you know, you're never in need.

6:08 For example, you were born into a wealthy

6:11 family and you already have everything.

6:14 Would that same wealthy father, would he force you to do such a brutal sport?

6:19 A sport where you come home every day

6:23 with injuries where you come home with an exhausted body,

6:27 you come home with bruises.

6:29 Would he really do that?

6:31 That's the question.

6:32 And the kid himself, who lives a life of luxury, would he even want to do this?

6:38 When we look at it statistically, the answer is no.

6:41 This is where you need that hunger.

6:43 You have to be in a position where you are truly in need.

6:47 And it's interesting that there's a psychological side to this as well,

6:50 that you need a tough situation to create champions.

6:54 But what's really interesting is how

6:56 Dagestan has produced so many wrestling champions.

6:59 You mentioned football.

7:00 Let's look at other countries.

7:02 Why has Brazil produced so many great football players?

7:06 Why does Argentina have so many football players?

7:09 Of course, you have Germany, France, and all that.

7:12 European, yeah.

7:13 The whole European side.

7:14 But those are completely different cultures.

7:16 Yes.

7:16 Well, in Brazil, their strength is in their numbers.

7:19 How many people do they have?

7:21 The population is huge, more than two hundred million.

7:24 And people really love it there.

7:26 It's a huge tradition.

7:27 Because, you know, without a real love for this sport,

7:30 you can never achieve any success.

7:32 You truly have to love what you are doing.

7:34 So they have the tradition and they have the love for it,

7:37 and that is why they play for all the top clubs.

7:40 Well, I think they just win by numbers.

7:43 Yeah, that's a powerful aspect of their culture.

7:46 How much people, how much the whole nation loves to play football.

7:49 And if you add to that a system that creates strong teams,

7:53 that's how you can produce so many football legends.

7:56 Yes.

7:56 Take Dagestan, for example.

7:57 We love football.

7:58 I just know how much people in Dagestan love football.

8:01 Yes, we have wrestlers, fighters.

8:03 There are many of us.

8:04 But for football players, there is no ecosystem like that.

8:07 Not so well organized where a kid can, for example, play at school,

8:11 then go to some academy, then get noticed there,

8:13 and then get picked up by a club.

8:15 We don't have that system.

8:17 It's just kids running on the streets,

8:21 playing on the streets, following football.

8:23 Let's say playing on PlayStation.

8:27 There is no system.

8:28 There is no selection process where kids can go and show themselves,

8:32 so they can be noticed and get signed.

8:34 I think Brazil and other countries, and of course Europe, they have it.

8:40 So yeah, we have big problems with football.

8:42 However, in our sports where you can, where you can wrestle,

8:46 where you can fight, in that sense, we have a system.

8:49 For example, the gyms, you know, in Makhachkala, let's say for combat sports.

8:53 I'm not even counting like freestyle wrestling or other styles.

8:57 There may be forty or fifty gyms for combat sports, and all are full.

9:01 If you win in Dagestan,

9:02 you move on to the North Caucasus level, then to the Russian nationals.

9:07 If you're champion of Russia, you go to the Worlds.

9:10 In amateurs, they notice you and you make a name for yourself.

9:13 There is a certain ladder here.

9:16 But in many other sports here in Dagestan,

9:18 we don't have such a well-structured ladder for people to climb.

9:23 Can we look at this philosophically again?

9:25 I mean, you've seen so many wrestlers, fighters.

9:28 Why exactly were these gyms creating so many champions?

9:32 I'm just honestly curious because it's rare in any sport,

9:36 one gym or a small number of gyms creating so many champions.

9:40 Well, first important factor is the competition level is incredibly high.

9:47 You come to the gym, and in every spot you have good wrestlers,

9:51 ten or fifteen guys right there, and the coaches are great.

9:56 You know, it so happened that my father broke through in the media,

10:01 and then I became a champion, and the other guys became champions too.

10:07 And my father's philosophy, it really resonated, and he became known for it.

10:13 But there are coaches in Dagestan that not many people know about.

10:18 They are known locally, but they are very good,

10:22 and actually they have the knowledge,

10:24 they have the approach, they have the philosophy.

10:28 They could also be at the same level as my father was.

10:31 I believe there are really quite a few of them.

10:34 In terms of the coaching, I think Dagestan was extremely lucky.

10:37 It probably goes back to the nineteen

10:40 fifties when wrestling really took off here,

10:43 starting with Ali Aliyev, our legendary wrestler,

10:46 a five-time world champion who went to the Olympics three times.

10:49 That's where it started, with his generation.

10:52 There was Zagalav Abdulbekov, Ali Aliyev.

10:55 Those are the well-known names.

10:57 I mean, those guys are famous, but there were so many other less

11:00 known wrestlers who later on, after they retired,

11:03 they all became great coaches themselves.

11:05 And these coaches, they raised a very large

11:08 number of guys who are really good at wrestling.

11:11 And then some of those coaches, they kind of switched over to fighting,

11:16 let's say to grappling, to MMA,

11:19 and they started coaching in combat Sambo as well.

11:23 And it just kept going like that, you know.

11:25 It was moving forward step by step.

11:29 And so we have a huge number of really great coaches.

11:32 I believe this is one of the single most

11:35 important keys to the success of Dagestani wrestlers and fighters,

11:39 the coaching staff of Dagestan.

11:42 Is it more about technique or is it really just about serious,

11:47 incredibly hard work?

11:48 Well, you have to look at the traditions,

11:50 because generally it's just the way it is in Dagestan.

11:53 Everyone wrestles.

11:54 Everyone fights.

11:55 It's part of our culture.

11:57 You know yourself, fighting is like fifty percent wrestling.

12:02 Every parent wants their children to wrestle, to be physically strong.

12:06 Our approach to kids is that a child must be strong.

12:10 They must be able to stand up for themselves, for their family.

12:13 It's something that has traditionally always been

12:17 in every single one of our clans, every family, every village.

12:22 It's just in our blood.

12:26 I mean, it's worth pointing out,

12:27 and you've actually written about this, that this isn't just a recent thing.

12:30 It's been going on for hundreds of years.

12:33 Yes, that's right.

12:35 These lands, Dagestan specifically,

12:37 have seen powerful armies sweep through time and time again.

12:42 Because of that, people here have always had to fight to survive.

12:46 Refusing to back down, refusing to give up their land or lose their identity.

12:51 Their homes, their villages, yeah, their families, and land.

12:56 If we look back a thousand years in history,

12:59 maybe fifteen hundred years, there was the Khazar Khaganate,

13:03 the Arabic Caliphate, then the Iranian Empire,

13:06 or the Persian Empire, I should say.

13:10 Then the Russian Empire, Timur passed through there, the Mongols.

13:15 And if we look at the geographical location of Dagestan,

13:19 for those who don't know,

13:21 the Caucasus range runs across the whole region like a wall,

13:25 and then it slopes down right where the Caspian lowlands are.

13:31 So you've got the sea on the right,

13:33 the mountains on the left, and the Caspian lowlands right here.

13:36 And there was a city there that's still standing today.

13:41 It's one of the oldest cities in the world, not just in Russia.

13:45 It's Derbent.

13:46 It used to be called Babul Abwab.

13:49 It means the gate of gates.

13:52 Very major trade routes went through there.

13:54 Very large armies passed through,

13:56 and it was bound to leave a mark on the people.

14:02 we have so many languages, more than thirty different languages,

14:05 and people just don't understand each other.

14:09 Take Islam and me.

14:10 We have different languages, come from different backgrounds.

14:13 Islam is Lak, and I'm Avar.

14:15 When we talk, it's not like it's a dialect.

14:17 We don't understand each other at all.

14:20 But since Islam has been with us for nearly twenty-five years,

14:24 he actually picked up some Avar over time.

14:28 But anyway, the deep history of the region, it all left its mark.

14:33 It created many different languages and traditions.

14:38 Basically, of course, Islam is our primary religion,

14:41 but Dagestan has actually absorbed a lot of cultures and faiths.

14:46 Even our food culture, it is incredibly rich.

14:50 We have European and Asian and Caucasian, our own unique cuisine.

14:56 So on the people, on the people themselves,

15:00 the last fifteen hundred years of history have left a huge mark.

15:05 If you're into history and you start reading about Dagestan,

15:08 I think you'll get completely immersed and be

15:12 amazed by what a unique place it is.

15:15 So all of this left a huge mark.

15:17 Look at the terrain.

15:18 It's a coastal plain, and then the mountains rise up.

15:21 For instance, take someone like Timur.

15:23 When he passed through with a huge army,

15:25 he stayed in the Dagestan lowlands but never went up into the mountains.

15:29 Why?

15:30 Because you've got hundreds of thousands of troops,

15:33 soldiers traveling with horses and supplies.

15:35 If they had started going up into the mountains

15:39 where it's cold and there are no roads, it would have been too tough for them.

15:45 So the highlanders somehow managed to stay independent.

15:48 But the lowlands, the Caspian lowlands of Dagestan, they kept changing hands.

15:55 Massive empires would roll in, and all of that left a mark on the people.

16:01 Gate of the gates, Babul Abwab.

16:04 Historians wrote about it, say, a thousand or fifteen hundred years ago,

16:09 great historians from various countries.

16:11 People have written so much about Dagestan.

16:13 It went by different names back then,

16:16 but they wrote a ton about this exact region.

16:21 Many people, many empires invaded our land.

16:25 So do you feel that inside you,

16:27 in your blood, your heart, like all of this history?

16:31 Well, in the past, it's not like I really felt it.

16:33 I knew Dagestan's history, but maybe with time,

16:36 you start to see it in a whole new light.

16:39 Every year, you change a bit on a mental and psychological level.

16:46 Now I understand.

16:48 I really do.

16:49 You cannot just be born physically and mentally strong.

16:55 Your environment shapes you no matter what, where you grew up,

16:59 how you grew up, the conditions, and who you had around you.

17:03 And after all, genetics are also a part of who you are.

17:07 So when you add all this up, yeah,

17:09 I just feel like all of this has come together inside me.

17:14 It's interesting because in sports,

17:16 we know many of the names of the great fighters and wrestlers.

17:22 Yet when it comes to war,

17:23 there are so many people who fought, heroes, truly great warriors.

17:28 Some we know by name,

17:30 but most of them we'll never actually know and-- We'll never know.

17:37 You write about Imam Shamil,

17:39 that he's an important figure for this region and a hero as well.

17:44 Well, Imam Shamil, he was known for resisting an empire as huge as Russia.

17:51 Dagestan is so small, and he had so few people with him.

17:54 How did he get famous?

17:56 He got famous because he held out for a very long time.

17:58 He didn't just resist for a couple of years.

18:01 He was like a regular fighter, let's say, a soldier for ten years,

18:06 and then when he became the leader, he went on for another twenty-five years.

18:13 So, 35 years of his conscious life

18:15 he spent fighting not just some random empire,

18:18 but what was then, if not the most powerful,

18:22 definitely one of the strongest empires of that era.

18:27 And that is what made him famous.

18:30 And so there are villages in Dagestan that deeply honor

18:34 the memory of particular warriors who came from their villages,

18:39 from their clan, from their ethnic group.

18:43 But in, well world history, they're barely known.

18:48 Like, take Shamil.

18:49 He's a leader, right?

18:51 So everybody knows him.

18:53 But there are plenty of heroes who've been forgotten.

18:55 But yeah, their own people remember.

18:58 Villages hold on to history.

19:00 Plus, we have to admit that conditions in the mountains are incredibly harsh.

19:04 That's part of it too.

19:06 Just surviving up there is a real struggle.

19:10 See, back then, people in the mountains worked

19:12 all through the summer just to survive the winter,

19:15 because winters are harsh, with heavy snow, completely cutting off villages.

19:19 People just stay inside and try to outlast it.

19:24 And in the summer, they work.

19:25 Terrace farming was a huge thing for us.

19:29 Our terraces are among the most, you could say, famous and ancient in the world.

19:34 They're known as the Chokh terraces.

19:36 Now, those are the famous ones.

19:38 But every village had terraces.

19:41 There's a place out there called Marghit, right across from our village.

19:45 People worked over there, but here, in the village, is where they lived.

19:49 I mean, you'd think, why didn't they just build a village right there,

19:53 in the place where we grow all our food?

19:56 Because enemies could easily ride in on horseback.

19:59 An army could easily get to you there,

20:01 so they'd build a village in rugged terrain-...

20:04 somewhere tough to invade.

20:07 For instance, our village is Sildi.

20:08 It's from the word si, which is like a castle or a fortress or a tower.

20:14 They built it that way so an army couldn't reach them.

20:17 You'd have to hike down one mountain

20:19 and then climb up a whole different mountain.

20:21 And right there, they'd plant things like grain,

20:25 potatoes, basically, you know, all their food.

20:29 See, if we had built over there,

20:31 if we lived there and grew our crops in the same place,

20:34 since it's all terraced land,

20:36 an army could just walk right up, launch raids, and so on.

20:39 Back in the day, that's how people lived.

20:42 And so all of this took a toll on people,

20:47 physically, psychologically, and mentally.

20:50 And honestly, well, you just can't be born in these conditions,

20:54 live here, stay here, and be mentally weak.

20:58 You just have to be tough.

20:59 There's no other way to survive.

21:02 So you just built a sports complex there.

21:05 Pretty legendary, you know.

21:06 Could you talk about that?

21:08 Yes, that was my father's whole plan.

21:10 He really wanted it way up in the mountains.

21:13 First, it's great for the fighters.

21:15 Right now, I just flew out here to Las Vegas.

21:19 We're sitting here, like, doing this podcast together,

21:21 but I came out here for Umar's fight.

21:25 And I should say, Umar did his main training there at the new base in Sildi.

21:32 He spent almost a month at that place.

21:34 And because it's 1500 to 1600 meters above sea level,

21:40 man, it's tough to train there.

21:43 And And the thing is, when you spend about three to four weeks there,

21:48 you just have more oxygen in your blood,

21:51 you have more testosterone, you improve physically,

21:54 you know, your stamina builds up, and so on.

21:59 And this base was sort of my father's dream.

22:03 He started building it back in 2016, 2017.

22:08 Money was tight back then.

22:09 It was really hard, but we built it little by little.

22:13 In 2020, my father passed away,

22:15 but I kept the project going just a little differently, on a bigger scale.

22:22 Right now, the base is open,

22:24 and 100 people can be there at the same time, training, eating, sleeping.

22:31 And our guys hold their training camps up there.

22:37 So this was sort of my father's dream that I have pretty much brought to life.

22:44 It's a powerful story.

22:45 To return to the place where you were born up

22:47 in the mountains in order to build a sports complex where champions train.

22:53 Makhachkala Gym is a great place, but the mountains are special.

22:58 Mountains are mountains.

22:59 Mountains are mountains.

23:00 Your home village, no matter what, on some sort of deeper level,

23:04 somehow gives you that, you know, like Americans love to say, positive energy.

23:08 Not everything has to be done for money.

23:11 And you know, you shouldn't just look for profit in everything,

23:16 let's say financially.

23:18 There are certain things that don't bring

23:20 me anything at all except for expenses, but I still do all of it because, um,

23:27 because it brings me a lot of happiness and meaning.

23:31 First of all, it creates a lot of jobs.

23:34 People can work and earn a living.

23:37 Second, it's because my father really wanted this.

23:41 Third, let's say the guys can train and improve up there,

23:45 both physically and spiritually.

23:47 There are just so many benefits there.

23:51 I don't know if it's okay to ask something like

23:53 this, but I would dream of coming out there to Dagestan,

23:56 and not just to Makhachkala, but to Sildi.

23:59 Is that even possible for me?

24:03 I think we could film a really good story out there.

24:05 I'm not sure about a podcast,

24:08 but I'm sure we could shoot a really nice vlog there.

24:13 So can you tell me a bit about

24:15 the journey from Makhachkala all the way to Sildi?

24:18 Four hours.

24:18 Well, 3:40.

24:19 Through the mountains?

24:20 Yeah, 3:30, 3:40 through the mountains.

24:22 The road is a real winding one, not an easy ride.

24:24 If it gets to be too hard for you, we can just take a helicopter.

24:28 It's no problem at all.

24:30 Like 40 to 50 minutes from Makhachkala to Sildi.

24:34 Otherwise, keeping it more down to earth,

24:36 we go by car, so there's absolutely no problem.

24:40 I could never get used to a wealthy life.

24:41 It's just, it's not in my blood to be like that.

24:44 All right, then we'll go by car.

24:46 Yeah, we could go on horseback, but a car is better.

24:49 No, no, by car is better.

24:51 On horseback takes way too long.

24:53 Um, so you mentioned money, and we were just talking about comfort

24:58 because right now there are so many champions.

25:00 They win so much.

25:02 Things are going so well.

25:04 How much harder is it to stay a champion when the money

25:08 and the fame start coming in, when all that stuff starts showing up?

25:13 Well, those are all distracting things.

25:15 When you become a champion, there's a massive amount of attention on you.

25:20 Sometimes it's contracts, sometimes you end up having to fly a lot,

25:24 you start getting busy with things,

25:26 and little by little you begin to miss your workouts.

25:28 You miss one, you miss two, you miss three.

25:33 And all of that takes a toll,

25:34 and the person who used to train with such a drive,

25:37 with a hunger to be the best, as soon as they actually become the best,

25:42 they just don't know what to do next.

25:44 And they live their whole life just to become, stay on the top.

25:54 As soon as they get there, what are they supposed to do?

25:59 That's it.

25:59 They already made it.

26:00 They've reached their goal, and there are just so many distracting factors:

26:05 money, flights, you know, meetings, contracts, video shoots.

26:10 There are just so many distracting factors.

26:13 And so if a person doesn't know how to handle all

26:16 of this, then that person comes down from the top real fast.

26:21 And I'm saying this based on my own experience,

26:23 from what I've seen all around me with the ones who came before me.

26:28 And back then when I was training with my father,

26:31 his students who went on to become world champions,

26:35 just how they finished their careers and so on.

26:38 And it's what I saw from my own observations of other types of sports,

26:43 how they came back down, as far as I've learned.

26:46 This is a very delicate moment.

26:48 If a person climbing all the way to the top,

26:52 if they can handle all of that, that already

26:55 shows they have an incredibly serious mindset.

26:57 Reaching the championship and staying there, reaching it is one thing,

27:02 but staying a champion, that's totally different.

27:05 It's incredibly tough.

27:07 You're saying that even on a local level, once you become a champion,

27:11 that's already the tough moment because a lot of people who start winning,

27:18 like you said, they stop fighting,

27:21 they quit doing MMA and switch over to fitness.

27:24 They find themselves that comfort.

27:27 But holding onto it is hard, even on a local level.

27:32 Every single time you become more and more of a champion,

27:36 you won the Sambo championship,

27:37 you keep winning more and more, and every time it gets harder.

27:43 Yes, and it depends on the person's goals.

27:45 If you want to become an amateur champion

27:47 just to prove something to yourself, that's one thing.

27:50 But if you view amateur sports as a springboard to jump

27:55 right into professional sports and become a champion among professionals,

27:58 that's a whole different thing.

28:00 There are different paths.

28:02 First, you build an amateur career just to get

28:05 into the pros and go even further from there.

28:09 Second, after you've made it into the pros, you become a champion.

28:13 And third, after you become a champion, you have to stay there.

28:18 Not everyone has what it takes.

28:20 It is incredibly tough.

28:21 If you look at the numbers, you can literally count these champions on one hand.

28:25 How many of them are there?

28:27 Maybe 15, 20, 30 people?

28:30 Let's say 50 over the last 30 years, and how many have tried?

28:34 For example, 50 achieved it over 30 years, over 35 years of MMA combat sports.

28:42 But how many tried?

28:43 Hundreds of thousands.

28:44 And look at that number.

28:45 Such a tiny amount actually reached the end goal.

28:49 So for you to actually make it into this tiny list,

28:53 you really have to be like just a truly unique,

28:58 person and a fighter and, and you know,

29:01 a student, and a person who can accept guidance

29:06 from a coach who when they are being guided,

29:10 discard the cons and take only the pros.

29:13 But there are people who take criticism very hard and very negatively,

29:17 and are very sensitive, let's say, when they take criticism-...

29:23 from a mentor.

29:24 So it all has to click, and some accept criticism at the very beginning,

29:30 but then once they become champions, it's hard for them to take it.

29:34 It happens differently.

29:35 A man sometimes doesn't even know what he is capable of.

29:40 Sometimes he just can't really understand himself

29:43 until he achieves success or becomes famous, wealthy, and powerful.

29:49 That is exactly when he discovers his true qualities.

29:54 When he is limited in something, in money,

29:57 in power, in everything that success eventually brings him,

30:02 he doesn't really know how he's going to act in this new role,

30:08 doesn't know how he'll behave once he becomes big, famous, and a champion.

30:13 Nobody knows.

30:14 Some people say and wish, "Oh, if only I'd made it like that, I would

30:18 do things this way." I think it's better if people

30:22 don't throw around such big words because you never

30:26 know how you'll carry yourself once you actually get there.

30:31 You know, it's such a delicate thing,

30:34 getting up there and still remaining human.

30:39 When it comes to you, I see that everyone here just loves you.

30:42 Even early on in your career, millions of people loved you.

30:45 That is also a, a tough thing to deal with because maybe you start believing it.

30:53 And you can lose yourself in all of it.

30:55 So is it all in the mind?

30:57 I mean, what actually goes on in a champion's head?

31:02 In yours when you sat alone thinking about your life, "Who am I really,

31:09 and what do I do to keep being a champion or to become one?"- Well,

31:15 first of all, from the very beginning,

31:16 if you realize that what you're chasing isn't the most important thing in life,

31:21 then it gets easier for you.

31:23 And then, you know, there are some people whose, let's say,

31:27 ultimate goal is to be successful, powerful, and to make it big.

31:33 At the end of the day, after all, we are not really such big, important people.

31:39 And, like, I believe it's wrong to just

31:44 crown yourself king because, uh if we put it,

31:51 to put it bluntly, if we're being honest here,

31:57 we can't even control the basic need to go to the restroom.

32:02 Maybe to some...

32:04 Yeah.

32:05 To some people this will probably seem a bit crude,

32:08 but we all go to the restroom, excuse my language.

32:11 If we can't control even this, so what can we actually control in this life?

32:18 Look how many people we know, how many great people have left this earth.

32:22 It doesn't really matter how, like, big, strong,

32:25 or famous you are, how wealthy you are, champion or no champion.

32:29 Either way, they put us all in the exact same grave, you know,

32:33 two meters down or, like, a meter or a meter and a half.

32:37 Different confessions, different religions, they bury people in different ways.

32:42 So I actually believe that every single person should have

32:45 this realization that we are just not some kind of big,

32:51 important people here who just decide and get to control everything.

32:55 We don't get to do that.

32:59 In my case, I was raised under the guidance of my father.

33:02 My father was a coach, and my goal was always to become...

33:08 To prove to my father that out of everyone,

33:12 even though he trains many other people,

33:15 he trains everyone, I mean, I'm also here.

33:18 I can show him.

33:19 He doesn't have to look very far.

33:21 I'm right there, and under his guidance, I can become a champion.

33:26 I looked up to him and followed his example,

33:29 trained hard, and it was like, you know,

33:33 a kind of a challenge to prove to him that, "Look, I am right here,

33:38 Father, and everything you teach, I will take it all in zealously, worthily.

33:43 I'll follow your program, do it right,

33:46 and I will become a champion." And that was exactly the kind of goal I had,

33:51 to prove it first and foremost to my father and secondly

33:55 to the entire world that I can become the best wrestler or fighter.

34:00 But I never thought of being crowned king after I became a champion.

34:06 I was never going to walk around like,

34:09 "Look how cool I am." That was never in my head,

34:12 and I'm really glad that the Almighty protected me from all of that because

34:17 many people end up in a bad place if they act like that.

34:23 This is a profound wisdom, not thinking about being crowned.

34:26 But even if you don't, a fire should burn within you,

34:29 driving you to become a champion, right?

34:32 As you said, hundreds of thousands,

34:34 millions of people want to be a champion, but only one can be.

34:38 Yeah, but that is actually about you confronting your opponent.

34:42 You've got to put a barrier inside your mind

34:46 where on one side you're a humble person,

34:48 but on the other side you're different because you have a goal, your goal.

34:54 Of course, you should still follow a code of honor.

34:56 You should be a man, a righteous man, and know what you can and cannot do.

35:01 You should always do that.

35:04 But in the end, your opponent is the person who wants to stop your dream.

35:10 So here the boundaries expand just a little bit.

35:14 Right here, you're already not playing humble.

35:16 Right here, you just step out and you

35:18 want to clear your opponent out of your way,

35:23 and that's it, because your goal is to be

35:26 the best in the world and they are blocking you.

35:29 Excuse me, but in this situation, there's no way you can act all humble.

35:36 But when you were training in the gym, what was it that gave you this strength?

35:39 A hatred of losing or a love for winning?

35:45 I think it was the hatred of losing.

35:48 Yes, definitely.

35:49 I mean, you know, of course you want to win,

35:52 but for me there was always this driver like, "No way.

35:56 I am not losing," you know.

36:00 When they would give me a fight, I always tell this to my guys,

36:03 whenever they would give me a fight on a professional level,

36:07 100 days before it I was...

36:11 How do you say it?

36:14 Addiction.

36:16 I was fixated like when people have this addiction.

36:18 But for me it was commitment,

36:20 that I absolutely had to prepare perfectly for the fight.

36:24 I couldn't miss any training sessions.

36:26 I would literally have, like, this panic.

36:29 Like, for example, I'd fly somewhere and I have,

36:32 let's say, eighty-five days left until the fight.

36:36 Like, I knew that I had to fly.

36:38 For example, if I was flying to Moscow, I would always pick a ticket so I

36:42 could absolutely do my morning training session first.

36:46 Then I'd take off around lunchtime.

36:48 And once I arrived in Moscow, for whatever reason,

36:51 I had to fit it all around my training schedule.

36:56 Either I had to meet up before my training sessions

36:58 or I had to meet up after my training sessions.

37:01 And I simply could not miss that evening training session because

37:04 I had to train during the day from four to five hours,

37:08 two in the morning and two to two and a half in the evening.

37:12 And I needed to I would prepare myself that way.

37:15 Looking at who was in Moscow right then,

37:18 wondering who I could, like pull into a training session there.

37:22 Well, they also had to— the person had to match my level as well.

37:25 Not just like I showed up there, you know, played around with him.

37:28 I needed a fight back.

37:31 I would arrange in advance who was gonna come.

37:33 Maybe some sparring, maybe I'd do wrestling,

37:35 maybe I'd hit the weights, maybe a striking workout.

37:40 So I had this, let's say I always had this tough and scientific approach to it.

37:45 So I believe that more than anything,

37:48 I didn't want to lose rather than I wanted to win, you know?

37:53 Of course, winning is also a huge pleasure,

37:55 but more than anything, I just didn't want to lose.

37:59 So in all those hard training sessions, you were thinking about not losing.

38:03 That's the fuel.

38:04 The fuel.

38:05 Four to five hours every single day.

38:06 Every day.

38:07 There is a story that I heard.

38:10 Sadulaev, the legendary wrestler, told a story that he went to a hotel,

38:15 I think it was in Moscow,

38:17 to train in the gym, and he was the only— It was during the night, I don't know.

38:21 He was the only one who was there.

38:24 And you came down-...

38:26 And you actually trained together.

38:28 And he said he, he said a lot of great things about you.

38:31 He said that you gave him some really deep wisdom,

38:34 which helped him to win the gold medal, at the Olympic Games.

38:42 I'm curious, could you tell us now what you told him?

38:44 What kind of wisdom did you give him?

38:48 I can't remember exactly, but we had really great conversations.

38:51 It's a great story that the two of you,

38:53 like two legends like that, just met completely by chance.

38:57 Well, look, he's a two-time Olympic champion, right?

38:59 Right.

39:00 I think he doesn't skip his training either.

39:02 He never missed one back then.

39:04 I believe that we both ended up there because we both,

39:08 you know, hate to lose, and we both really want to win.

39:12 And, you know, recently I came across this idea.

39:17 There are athletes who simply want to win,

39:20 and then there are some for whom victory isn't enough.

39:23 They want domination.

39:25 I believe that he is one of those as well.

39:28 They want domination.

39:29 And for that, what does a person have to do?

39:32 They have to train.

39:34 They have to grind morning and night.

39:36 And there was this thing with us.

39:40 After the morning, my father never let us sleep.

39:43 When I say the morning, I mean after Fajr, the dawn prayer.

39:47 He just wouldn't sleep himself, so we couldn't either.

39:51 So every morning, six, seven, we'd be out doing our warm-up.

39:55 Some people might call it a warm-up,

39:57 but when you show up at the stadium in the morning,

40:00 you run five kilometers, you do sprints,

40:02 you work with resistance bands, you work on the pull-up bar, you do push-ups,

40:07 dips, jumps, you know the bands then work with a partner, drilling and so on.

40:15 That's about two hours of work.

40:17 You drop two, two and a half kilos there.

40:19 Not really a warm-up, but Father always called it that, right?

40:23 That was a full morning training at seven AM.

40:26 Then I came home to rest, and at four o'clock, we'd head to the gym.

40:32 The training would start at five o'clock and end at seven.

40:36 By eight, I'd be home, and by eleven, I'd rest up.

40:41 And yet I kept thinking that something was missing.

40:45 Like, I know that I have a start,

40:47 a competition coming up in like forty or thirty days,

40:50 and I would wake up and I'd be like, "Let me go to the sea.

40:54 I'm gonna go down to the sea,

40:55 do some running, some sprints on the sand, work out,

40:58 and so on." And so many times,

41:00 I ended up going out for a third training session as well.

41:05 Sometimes Father would say, "Rest.

41:06 In the morning, we're gonna have a heavy

41:08 workload." But sometimes I wouldn't tell Father.

41:11 I'd just go out at night, head out, and train.

41:14 At night when everyone's asleep, when nobody's around,

41:17 I'd grab one of my close friends,

41:19 give them a call, have them pick me up, then hop in the car and head to the sea.

41:24 I'd train for an hour or an hour and a half, come back, and crash.

41:28 Next morning, I'd get up and start all over again.

41:31 And just this routine, nonstop.

41:34 And when I see guys, you know,

41:35 when they do just one training session or like they say,

41:38 "On Wednesday, we have a morning training,

41:41 then an evening sauna session." What do you mean?

41:45 You have to fight in fifty days.

41:46 You have a huge fight ahead and you want

41:49 to take a rest in the middle of the week?

41:52 Well, rest on Sunday.

41:54 On Saturday, do a morning training, hit the sauna in the evening,

41:57 take a complete rest on Sunday, and start all over again on Monday.

42:02 That was just my approach.

42:03 Everyone does it differently.

42:05 I don't know.

42:06 I just think it has to be in your head.

42:08 You've got to want it incredibly badly.

42:12 So you believe that to be a champion, you have to train like that, you have

42:15 to be that serious for the majority of people?

42:18 Let's say I believe that to be at the top, the top tier, right?

42:25 One of the best in the world A person has to always be, you know,

42:31 a little bit, let's say just a little bit crazy,

42:34 but in a good sense of the word.

42:36 You have to be addicted to it and to want this incredibly bad.

42:40 You have to take a fanatical approach to the training process.

42:45 Just showing up and working out,

42:47 that's what hundreds of thousands of guys are doing around the world.

42:51 To stand out from that, from this crowd, let's say,

42:55 who have the exact same goals as you do,

42:58 to stand out from that, you have to take a fanatical approach to it.

43:04 Well, look, I'm training with John Danaher.

43:07 And they train like that too.

43:08 They train three times a day.

43:10 And it actually feels right this way.

43:12 I mean, of course, this is how you have to train.

43:15 'Cause of that, John has one of the best-- Yeah, he makes champions-...

43:18 students in the world, and after all, they don't just take some random place.

43:21 I mean, they're not somewhere in the middle.

43:24 They're at the top, and look at their whole approach.

43:28 Some people...

43:31 Look, a person with that kind of approach just can't be somewhere in the middle.

43:35 It's impossible.

43:36 If you have a fanatical attitude,

43:39 the right attitude toward the training process,

43:42 on top of that, you have to be fanatical about it.

43:47 You love what you do, and in the end, there will be results.

43:52 Well, just look at John and look where his guys are.

43:55 He creates champions.

43:56 He finds a champion in everyone, across every category, right?

44:02 He creates champions, not just one or two, but all of them.

44:07 He finds a champion in everyone, across every category.

44:11 Look, the people who come to him, he has a system, let's say, right?

44:15 Under this roof, under his roof, there is a system.

44:19 People come here, and they become champions in this system.

44:24 So there are people there who are champions.

44:27 These are specific established names.

44:30 And there are other people who came and left.

44:34 They entered that black room, so to say, an uncomfortable place.

44:38 They went in, stood for a year, a year and a half or two, and left.

44:44 Nobody talks about them.

44:45 These are the people who came in, broke mentally,

44:48 and left, and there aren't just a few of them.

44:51 There are a lot.

44:52 Usually, most people give up.

44:54 There are many who give up,

44:56 but then there are the ones who come in and stay there for a long time.

45:00 Long, long time.

45:02 And after some time, they achieve success.

45:05 They become the best.

45:08 They prove to themselves that once they enter the system,

45:11 they could stay there for a long time, endure, and become the best.

45:16 They prove that they are already capable of many things.

45:21 They can be trusted to supervise big, important projects.

45:26 I would even say, for example,

45:28 2,000 years ago, they could easily rule entire cities.

45:34 So a person who has gone through it physically, who has lived through it,

45:39 who has faced challenges, passed the tests,

45:42 they are capable of a lot, highly capable.

45:45 You don't just walk into martial arts and become the best.

45:49 It's very difficult.

45:50 It means that you go through pain, you make sacrifices,

45:55 you give your time, you face setbacks and failures in training.

46:01 The mental strength and capacity mean a lot there.

46:04 And when I talk about his system, look,

46:07 I mean those schools that became the best,

46:09 let's say, in football or in freestyle wrestling or, let's say,

46:14 in MMA, in grappling, or in judo.

46:17 It's really hard to enter one of the best schools in the world,

46:21 to stay when they are breaking you,

46:23 throwing you, choking you, to improve as a person and as an athlete,

46:29 and to become a champion.

46:31 It takes at least 12 years, 10 to 12 years, maybe 15.

46:36 For some, it took longer.

46:39 And to get through the grind for these 15 years and then

46:43 to break through and become the best is worth a lot.

46:48 Have you had those tough moments where you're almost broken psychologically?

46:53 You know, just sitting there, finding it hard to breathe,

46:57 and everything is going wrong, lost in some situations.

47:03 And when you were young, was there ever a moment like that?

47:08 'Cause the guys from Dagestan on the team, really great guys, by the way,

47:13 all say they've never seen you broken in training, not even losing really.

47:19 But when you were young, did it ever happen?

47:23 Look, I've been in this grind since I was a kid.

47:27 Wherever my father coached, there were always...

47:30 Let's take the year 2004, for example.

47:33 My father put together the Dagestan national team

47:36 for combat Sambo and in mixed martial arts,

47:39 which was called no-holds-barred fighting.

47:41 There were training camps, too.

47:44 I was 15.

47:45 It was the winter of 2004, and I was the youngest guy there.

47:51 The others were, let's say, between 22 and 30, all active world champions.

47:57 At that time, I was, like, 14, 15 years old.

48:03 I wrestled with them, grappled,

48:05 was in this uncomfortable environment for myself,

48:09 where we always had the rule that the youngest has to do everything,

48:13 and he is always wrong, and I had to deal with that.

48:19 Especially in the gym, they throw you, hit you again and again.

48:23 You have to show up morning and evening, day after day.

48:26 This place hardens you.

48:28 They say How the steel was tempered.

48:31 Steel isn't tempered for nothing.

48:33 How many times do you have to strike the steel before it becomes a sword?

48:38 That doesn't just happen by itself.

48:41 Did you believe in yourself then?

48:43 Some of the guys who were at those camps back then, they're grown men now.

48:47 Even then, they were older than me by 10, 12, maybe 15 years.

48:52 And they always used to say, "Khabib,

48:56 we honestly thought you were going to become some kind of scholar or scientist."

49:01 Because my father was always making me read and write, read and write.

49:09 I would copy out entire books by hand.

49:12 There was always this control.

49:13 It wasn't like he'd say, "Khabib,

49:15 go do this", and you could just walk away and not do it.

49:19 When he said, "Go do it", you did it.

49:21 My father never forgot anything.

49:23 He had a phenomenal memory.

49:25 He'd be like, "Did you do it?" And everything he told you, he remembered.

49:29 He just did.

49:31 He checked you.

49:32 He was like, "Come here." And he'd check.

49:34 I knew it wasn't something I could get away with.

49:37 So, you know, since childhood, I was lucky that my father always kept me close,

49:43 and I found myself in this environment among fighters who at that time-...

49:50 were, I don't know, they just didn't compete in America and Europe back then.

49:54 But in the post-Soviet space, they were the best at that time.

50:00 And it helped me a lot to become mentally strong.

50:05 Tell me more about your father.

50:07 You've read a lot.

50:09 You didn't just fight.

50:11 You were well-rounded and you told several stories about this.

50:14 There was a book, what is it called?

50:17 Countries and Peoples.

50:19 Yes, from my childhood.

50:21 It is, really.

50:22 Yes.

50:22 And it went on-- The approach was the same.

50:26 Tell that story because I think it's important

50:27 for the parents listening to us to understand this.

50:30 You're not just trying to create a champion.

50:33 You're trying to raise a well-rounded person,

50:36 a wise person, a person with depth.

50:40 Yes, you have to give the right motivation to kids with proper communication.

50:44 My father was very good at this.

50:47 I now realize interacting with my own kids how

50:51 wise he was and how deeply he understood this.

50:55 Because when a child is eight, 10 years old,

50:58 and when they are just beginning to form as a person,

51:02 it is important to have the right approach.

51:05 I now understand how farsighted my father's approach was.

51:09 First, he tried not to give me anything for free.

51:12 Only sometimes I could get something for free.

51:16 For example, before a holiday,

51:18 like Eid al-Fitr or before school started, Father would give money.

51:23 I'd go buy clothes at the market for back to school,

51:27 that kind of thing, you know?

51:29 And at other times, he always told me, "Well,

51:31 if you want it, you need to earn it.

51:33 You want me to give you money just like that?" There would be

51:38 some work around the house and so on that I had to do.

51:41 And I knew that encouragement would always be there.

51:45 My father always had this kind of approach.

51:48 He set a very strong personal example, very strong,

51:51 and I really learnt a lot from him.

51:54 Took a lot.

51:55 And then, as you mentioned, there was the book, Countries and Peoples.

51:59 Someone gave it to him as a gift.

52:02 My father read through it, and he realized that it was perfect for me,

52:07 for a child who was 10, 11, maybe 12 at the time.

52:13 That book was part of my life for about two or three years, something like that.

52:18 It was about 193 countries.

52:20 The geography, history, all the details.

52:24 For each country, it describes its geographical location,

52:27 which countries it bordered, its major rivers,

52:31 mountains, cities, history, economy, finances.

52:34 Just brief information about every country.

52:37 My father said, "You'll tell me about each country,

52:40 and I'll give you money for it." And I thought,

52:44 "All right." I knew this was like my own

52:48 little capital just sitting there waiting for me.

52:51 All I had to do was come, take that book, read it, understand it.

52:55 Then my father would take the book and say,

52:58 "Now, tell me what you read." And he would check.

53:02 He would look through it.

53:04 The countries were arranged alphabetically.

53:05 A for Andorra, Angola, and so on.

53:08 B for Belgium, Brazil, and so on.

53:11 Everything went in alphabetical order.

53:13 I started from A and read them all straight to the very end.

53:18 Like every single time when I needed the money, I did that.

53:22 And for example, I go over the first 40 countries,

53:26 he'd check a box, and then I continued.

53:29 That's how my father would test me.

53:34 Let's just say that my knowledge of geography comes from back then.

53:42 Did you realize how big the world was?

53:44 No.

53:45 As a child, you don't understand?

53:47 At that time, I didn't understand.

53:48 But since then, I've had this desire to travel.

53:51 I really wanted to travel, visit different countries,

53:54 see wonders of the world, the Colosseum, the pyramids.

53:59 But all of this is from childhood, from what I read and wrote.

54:04 It wasn't just about reading.

54:06 I also had to rewrite it.

54:08 I had to write it down.

54:10 I always wrote down what I read.

54:13 And actually, this is very good advice for parents, you know.

54:19 They can use this with their children too.

54:22 They can tell them to sit down and copy books by hand.

54:28 First of all, eyesight improves.

54:31 Reading improves.

54:32 Writing, how you write improves.

54:36 Your handwriting.

54:36 And it stays with you when you read and write.

54:41 It really develops a child.

54:43 Not only I believe that, I actually do

54:48 advise parents to motivate their kids this way.

54:51 You can simply create some kind of challenge that children

54:56 benefit from and reward them for it after it is done.

55:02 This really helps develop a child's mind.

55:06 I actually saw advice from the great writers who said

55:11 that they remembered doing the same thing when they were young.

55:15 When they first started writing,

55:17 they just simply copied other legendary writers.

55:20 You read their work and then you type it out yourself,

55:26 and you start absorbing that style into your bloodstream.

55:30 Well, it needs to be done in childhood.

55:32 When the child is ready to learn and his mind is open,

55:37 let's say as a metaphor, when his table is clean,

55:41 not occupied with clutter, then as a father,

55:45 you can help them place all the right things on the table in their proper place.

55:51 Let's say put the food in one place, flowers in another, something like that.

55:58 It is important.

55:59 That's why I believe I was very lucky.

56:03 My father did the right thing.

56:05 He provided me with the right kind of information,

56:09 and I learned a lot just from being around him.

56:13 I learned so much just from his presence.

56:16 He was there at home, and then we also went to competitions.

56:21 He was always there at trainings and at camps,

56:24 so I absorbed a lot from him, and it was interesting for me too.

56:31 Of course, when you're a teenager,

56:35 sometimes you're tired, sometimes you want to break free.

56:38 All of that was there.

56:41 But my father had the right approach.

56:45 He influenced me a lot and in the right way.

56:49 And there's the physical component too of hard work.

56:53 There's a story you told about the time he made

56:55 you dig a big hole just because it was difficult.

57:00 There's wisdom in that.

57:02 That you just need to work.

57:03 You need to stay busy all the time.

57:06 These were training camps from two thousand and five to two thousand and seven.

57:09 In the summer, we went to the mountains.

57:11 There was a children's camp there,

57:13 an old Soviet-style pioneer camp where we stayed doing our runs in the forest.

57:19 Together, we built a small training area there with a rope,

57:23 a punching bag, a pull-up bar.

57:25 We did sprints there.

57:26 We pulled resistance bands.

57:28 After running in the mountains, we would come back and work there.

57:32 There were almost no mats.

57:33 We built the base ourselves.

57:35 It had a dining room on the first floor and an attic space where we slept.

57:40 We would come downstairs, eat, go outside,

57:43 train in that little sports area, then run in the forest.

57:46 It was somewhere around twelve hundred meters above sea level, a conifer forest.

57:52 We spent the whole summer there.

57:55 There we'd train in the morning, then there was nothing to do all day,

57:59 and in the evening we had training sessions again.

58:03 But during the day, so we wouldn't be busy with unnecessary things,

58:07 my father sometimes gave us work.

58:09 And we'd ask, "Why are we digging this pit?" He'd say,

58:12 "Well, people used to use it like a refrigerator.

58:15 When you dig two or three meters down, it is cold inside.

58:19 You can put milk there, cheese,

58:21 things like that, so the food does not go bad." And we were like,

58:26 "Okay, but do we really need these refrigerators every day?" So in that sense,

58:31 this was his approach back then.

58:33 He always had this kind of unique approach.

58:36 Well, what's the philosophy here?

58:37 That you gotta be busy all the time, working hard, doing something difficult.

58:43 Yes, it's very dangerous to give a child free time in adolescence.

58:47 They should always be busy learning new information,

58:51 improving, acquiring new skills.

58:53 A person should always be busy.

58:55 When you're sixteen, well, what can be on your mind?

58:58 You should constantly develop and improve.

59:03 And by this time, you should already,

59:04 I believe, have decided what you want to become.

59:07 You should already be investing in what you want to turn into.

59:15 By the way, you had several very good conversations with Nurlan,

59:19 with Adam, which I highly recommend.

59:21 In one of them, your brother Abubakar told a story that when you were young,

59:27 there were several street fights, maybe many, I don't know.

59:30 He said he was the one who got you into it.

59:33 You were kind of bigger, and he needed protection at that time.

59:38 You were that protection.

59:39 Can you tell us these stories?

59:41 How often did you fight on the streets of Dagestan?

59:46 Well, let's start with the fact that I never bullied anyone.

59:49 Never.

59:50 Although I physically could bully, yes, let's say I had the capability.

59:56 I wasn't the kind of person who started the fights.

1:00:00 You didn't start?

1:00:02 I didn't.

1:00:02 Well—- Tried to finish.

1:00:04 Well, maybe there were some moments, but mostly no.

1:00:08 Mostly I didn't start.

1:00:10 Abubakar, sure, he was like that.

1:00:13 In my circle, I had some guys who were a little bit like that.

1:00:17 He said that he's a bit of—- He was a troublemaker.

1:00:21 He was a troublemaker, and because of him, I got into trouble many times.

1:00:27 When you're, let's say, fourteen,

1:00:29 fifteen years old and your brother is fighting.

1:00:33 You don't really ask who's right or who's wrong.

1:00:36 You just go in, you start to, as we say, you interfere.

1:00:40 You just have to go in, right?

1:00:43 But when you're older, more conscious,

1:00:45 when you're twenty, twenty-five or thirty years old,

1:00:49 this is when you really start telling him,

1:00:53 "You know, Abubakar, I think you're wrong here.

1:00:56 Yes, we'll finish this right now, but in the future,

1:01:00 I wouldn't want you to get involved because I think it's wrong,

1:01:04 right?" Well, as kids, we just didn't ask.

1:01:07 We just went right in.

1:01:09 When we moved to Makhachkala in 1999, let's say the end of 1999,

1:01:16 so there were—we were many brothers, more than ten of us.

1:01:21 We lived in one house.

1:01:23 Some were in school, some in college, some in university.

1:01:26 But we all had one routine.

1:01:28 We trained in the morning, then went to school.

1:01:31 We'd come home, rest, do homework, then train in the evening,

1:01:34 come home and rest, without mothers, just by ourselves.

1:01:39 Father gathered everyone.

1:01:40 He took in close friends and family, his nephews, cousins,

1:01:44 relatives, those who didn't have a father, and so on.

1:01:48 He took them in, and we all lived in one house.

1:01:51 We cooked, cleaned, did laundry all by ourselves.

1:01:54 It was like, well, some kind of army life, you know?

1:01:59 And when the brothers had some problems,

1:02:03 let's say misunderstandings, we didn't go easy on those guys.

1:02:10 And even those who lived around there near that house, in that district,

1:02:15 in the settlement, everyone knew that there were lots of brothers living there.

1:02:20 So they had to be careful.

1:02:23 And we had a football field there.

1:02:26 It was right in front of the house, and everyone who came to play there,

1:02:32 we constantly had fights there, misunderstandings.

1:02:35 There were older brothers.

1:02:39 They were always watching us, keeping us from trouble.

1:02:41 "Don't do this.

1:02:42 Don't do" that.

1:02:43 Watch your mouth." But we had our own little group.

1:02:47 The age difference between us was maybe two, three years.

1:02:51 There were five or six of us.

1:02:53 We'd always go outside and play football.

1:02:58 If our team was losing,

1:03:00 then the game would just turn into a whole different sport,

1:03:04 and that's how we were growing up.

1:03:07 We spent six, seven years there, almost ten years.

1:03:12 We were living together, growing, training.

1:03:15 A lot has happened over that time, but I was never...

1:03:21 Well, maybe just a couple of times, okay?

1:03:24 Mostly, I was never the initiator of fights with some exceptions.

1:03:30 I just remember since childhood, my father always told me,

1:03:34 "You don't need to use force on the street." My father

1:03:38 looked at all of this in a completely different way.

1:03:44 What is your understanding of the difference

1:03:46 between the street fight and sports?

1:03:50 There is a very big difference.

1:03:52 I saw many fights where if you put those same guys into sparring,

1:03:59 in wrestling, MMA or combat Sambo, one guy could beat the other very easily.

1:04:06 But the street is completely different.

1:04:08 There are no rules, no referees, no points.

1:04:13 You just fight there, and it's totally different.

1:04:18 I can say I actually had a major turning point in my life.

1:04:26 Let's say the one that, in terms of psychology,

1:04:31 really changed my whole attitude towards MMA.

1:04:37 Back in twenty oh two, twenty oh three, my father kept me in wrestling.

1:04:42 He trained MMA combat Sambo, but wanted me to stay in wrestling.

1:04:46 My cousin, who was older than me by a couple of months,

1:04:52 he was training with my father.

1:04:53 His freestyle wrestling was weak, so my father sent him to me,

1:04:57 to the place where I was training.

1:05:00 It was called the School of Higher Sports Mastery.

1:05:03 The local guys from the city know this place.

1:05:06 He came to practice and got into it with a guy in our gym who was heavier,

1:05:13 maybe one class heavier.

1:05:15 This guy was the best in his weight, winning Dagestan and the city too.

1:05:21 So they got into a conflict.

1:05:25 They were arguing.

1:05:27 My brother had just joined.

1:05:30 He was new to our freestyle wrestling gym, right?

1:05:34 But I knew the other guy well.

1:05:37 They paired up and they got into it.

1:05:39 Well, that's my brother, right?

1:05:42 So the guy goes, "Let's meet up after." And they agreed,

1:05:46 as we say, to step outside after the training.

1:05:50 I remember it was raining heavily, a real downpour.

1:05:55 The guy brought his brother.

1:05:57 I came with mine.

1:06:00 We went outside and they started fighting one-on-one.

1:06:05 I remember he shot in, lifted and took him down.

1:06:09 Abdurakhman, my brother, threw up a triangle and he choked him out.

1:06:15 When we went out, I was thinking Abdurakhman will lose to this guy.

1:06:20 I even visualized it happening, the whole thing.

1:06:23 Like, this guy beats him, and then I start fighting.

1:06:28 Well, I'm not going there for my brother to lose.

1:06:31 In my head, I was getting into a fight.

1:06:34 But he threw him locked up in a triangle.

1:06:37 For the first time I saw with my own eyes how

1:06:40 someone chokes another person with a triangle and they lose consciousness.

1:06:46 Wow.

1:06:47 They fought, he put him to sleep.

1:06:49 We had to pull them apart, me and other guys.

1:06:55 Fights over, Abdurrahman won.

1:06:56 And on the way home, I'm like, "Abdurrahman, wow.

1:07:01 You impress me." I came home and immediately told my father.

1:07:07 I said...

1:07:07 That was in 2002 or '03, if I'm not mistaken.

1:07:12 I am 14 years old.

1:07:14 I said, "I'm switching to combat Sambo." I said, "What Abdurrahman did,

1:07:18 the one he choked out, he's not just anyone in the gym.

1:07:22 He's one of the best wrestlers, but he couldn't do anything." My father said,

1:07:28 "You'll go to wrestling, but you'll come to me, I'll teach you.

1:07:32 You'll learn techniques here and so on.

1:07:36 But I want you to gain wrestling skills." I

1:07:39 started going three days to train with my father, three days to wrestling.

1:07:44 And at that moment, I realized that no matter how strong the wrestler is,

1:07:49 lying on the back is where the wrestling normally ends,

1:07:53 but MMA only begins there.

1:07:55 And I was like, I thought, "I need this.

1:07:59 I need this mixed style." I realized this was for me.

1:08:03 I started going to my father's trainings, despite that he didn't let me.

1:08:07 He didn't want me to do fighting.

1:08:09 I think most people don't know this.

1:08:12 My father wanted me to do freestyle wrestling or judo,

1:08:15 but in my head, I already had this mixed style.

1:08:18 I always wanted to compete.

1:08:20 I was already getting tapes to watch.

1:08:22 I always wanted to compete where there are no rules,

1:08:26 where I could fully use my skills.

1:08:29 Maximum freedom.

1:08:31 Yes, judo, Sambo, freestyle, grappling, jujitsu.

1:08:34 More people knew jujitsu than grappling.

1:08:39 After that, I switched, and from there my journey slowly started,

1:08:43 which I had already begun.

1:08:45 That's when I started the amateur journey.

1:08:49 Then when I started getting good results as an amateur,

1:08:53 I realized that I can switch to pro and achieve success.

1:08:57 Sambo.

1:08:58 In combat Sambo.

1:08:59 Combat Sambo.

1:09:00 I competed in all kinds of sports.

1:09:03 Everything that involves wrestling and fighting.

1:09:05 I competed everywhere.

1:09:07 I competed in freestyle, in judo, in grappling, in combat Sambo.

1:09:11 I competed in sport Sambo, in hand-to-hand combat, in pankration.

1:09:15 My father put me in all competitions.

1:09:18 He would say, "You have a competition here and another one there.

1:09:23 Now you are preparing for this one.

1:09:25 You will compete in this weight, under these rules,

1:09:28 in this sport." And he was sending me everywhere.

1:09:31 He would tell me, "You will need this in the future.

1:09:34 The more competition experience you have,

1:09:36 the more relaxed and confident you'll feel.

1:09:38 It builds up over time." When I was young, I was losing as well.

1:09:42 I go to a judo competition, win two matches and lose two matches.

1:09:46 I would ask, "Father, why are you sending me there?

1:09:49 This is not my sport." And he'd say, "No,

1:09:51 go and compete." So, okay, I went, I cut weight.

1:09:55 The next day you come in, you see 50 competitors in your weight class.

1:10:00 You let this weight, this competitive energy pass through you,

1:10:06 and psychologically you get better, better, better each time.

1:10:10 You become more relaxed about it.

1:10:13 And this moment really affected me, although then I didn't agree with my father.

1:10:18 Back then I thought,

1:10:20 "Why should I compete in other sports?" He said, "You can wrestle, right?

1:10:25 Well, go wrestle." I was saying, "But judo isn't my sport.

1:10:30 It's hard for me there." He says, "Well, you went on four times.

1:10:35 Look, you won twice, then lost twice.

1:10:38 You competed four times.

1:10:39 You're 15 years old.

1:10:41 You're just developing.

1:10:43 Do you know how valuable this experience is for you?

1:10:47 Four matches in one day." Now when I'm coaching,

1:10:51 I understand the psychological approach, how important it is.

1:10:56 I realize now how correctly he prepared me for the big stage.

1:11:03 The preparation was already happening then when I was 15 years old.

1:11:08 For example, when I went into the biggest fight in combat sports history,

1:11:13 when I fought in 2018 here in Las Vegas.

1:11:17 At that point, I was already at my peak, prime time.

1:11:23 I was 30 years old.

1:11:25 I went through all possible competitions as an amateur and a professional.

1:11:31 And you know what?

1:11:32 I was ready.

1:11:35 This preparation, it started back then when I was 15.

1:11:40 It's not like they give you a fight and you prepare for two months.

1:11:44 Preparation starts long before you even step into the octagon.

1:11:50 So this experience of competitions,

1:11:52 which started at 15, it continued, it expanded.

1:11:56 Yeah, of course.

1:11:57 So can you explain what was going on in your head?

1:12:01 I didn't want to lose.

1:12:03 I just didn't.

1:12:04 It never occurred to me that I could get hurt,

1:12:07 that someone could hurt me, that I might break a finger somewhere.

1:12:12 I never had that in my head, that I could get hit,

1:12:15 that I'd get a scratch, and so on.

1:12:18 I don't know if you can call it perfectionism.

1:12:21 I didn't want to lose.

1:12:23 And to not lose, I knew I needed to compete a lot and improve.

1:12:28 Training is one thing, but competing is different.

1:12:31 I understood that the more I competed, the more experience I would gain.

1:12:36 I had to go through it.

1:12:38 It was constantly on my mind.

1:12:40 This understanding that I must compete a lot came to me at an early age,

1:12:45 since I was fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen,

1:12:49 and I never stopped thinking about it.

1:12:51 So it was always in the back of my mind.

1:12:56 Were you confident that you would win?

1:12:58 In my youth?

1:12:59 No.

1:13:00 Were you afraid to lose?

1:13:01 Yeah, in my youth, I wasn't always so sure.

1:13:04 I just wasn't.

1:13:05 Because I never stood out.

1:13:06 Yes, I had a coach for a father, and how many,

1:13:10 how many trainers have kids who compete but aren't successful?

1:13:15 And then when I went to the big leagues, you know, I had already fought.

1:13:21 I had done sixteen professional fights across the post-Soviet space.

1:13:26 Later, when I was already signed to the UFC, there I already had this feeling.

1:13:32 You know, with each fight, I was getting mentally stronger.

1:13:37 My mind was becoming more and more solid, like concrete.

1:13:43 When I went out there, I knew, yes, these are fights.

1:13:47 Yes, you can take a hit.

1:13:50 Yes, anything can happen when knees, elbows, fists are flying,

1:13:55 when you can get caught in a choke, you know?

1:13:59 But I thought, "If they don't knock me out, how will they beat me?

1:14:05 I have fifteen minutes.

1:14:06 Fifteen minutes is enough to make a person tired." I'm like,

1:14:11 "Okay, if you wanna stop me, come here.

1:14:14 I'll give you that chance.

1:14:17 Let's get in the octagon." I had this impatience during fight week.

1:14:23 I wanted to go in there and feel my opponent.

1:14:26 I just wanted to be inside the cage for them

1:14:30 to close us in, for the referee to say, "Ready?

1:14:34 Ready.

1:14:34 Fight." And here I wanted to feel, to grapple with him and feel his strength,

1:14:41 his skills, his energy, and for it not to stop.

1:14:46 And with any opponent I felt from the beginning,

1:14:49 and I didn't actually have superhuman strength.

1:14:53 But from the beginning,

1:14:55 when I grabbed them in the first minute and then in the sixth or seventh minute,

1:15:00 I could feel them fading.

1:15:04 I was, let's say, like squeezing this energy out of them,

1:15:09 and I was getting better and better minute by minute.

1:15:15 Can you break down the technical details of your top pressure?

1:15:19 That pressure you put on in wrestling, on the ground, all of it.

1:15:26 How does it work?

1:15:27 Can you explain the philosophy behind it?

1:15:30 Over the years, I've learned to use my strength properly.

1:15:33 There's this sport called aikido.

1:15:35 I don't like it much, but I like their philosophy,

1:15:39 where your strength might work against you.

1:15:43 I think for a lot of listeners, this is gonna be a brand-new sport.

1:15:46 But there is this sport called aikido,

1:15:49 and the whole philosophy behind it is using your opponent's force against them.

1:15:53 That's what I learned to do.

1:15:57 And I have learned to force an opponent

1:16:00 into positions where they have to escape wasting their energy.

1:16:04 Like when we were sparring yesterday.

1:16:05 That's exactly what I wanted.

1:16:08 I wanted you to feel that energy, that heavy top pressure.

1:16:12 We could have just played around.

1:16:15 I could have gone easy on you, but I wanted you to feel the real heavy pressure.

1:16:21 And of course, please don't think it was a sign of disrespect.

1:16:23 It's quite the opposite.

1:16:25 No, it was respect.

1:16:26 I just wanted you to feel that, you know, how exhausting it can be.

1:16:32 I think you felt it yourself that it was a bit

1:16:35 different from the kind of grappling you've dealt with before.

1:16:38 I'm sure of it.

1:16:40 The only one who's even close to that is,

1:16:42 I mean, you're the absolute number one.

1:16:44 But the only thing is, when I trained with Roger Gracie in a different sport,

1:16:47 you get that same feeling with him.

1:16:49 Like, the guy is just insanely heavy.

1:16:51 Mm-hmm.

1:16:51 Pressure.

1:16:52 Pressure.

1:16:52 Well, Roger, he's the greatest, too.

1:16:55 He's the greatest in his own sport.

1:16:58 What makes a person unique is his style, his style and his approach to his work.

1:17:06 I always approach my craft very professionally, you know, respectfully.

1:17:10 I believe that if you're gonna be in this game,

1:17:15 in this sport, you have to completely dedicate yourself to it.

1:17:20 But I think you had a deep understanding of how to break an opponent,

1:17:23 both physically and psychologically, just looking at your style.

1:17:28 I've always been right there, always fighting for position.

1:17:32 I always— Look, I mean that I just always had this thought in my head.

1:17:41 My grandfather always told me, "A dog that latches onto that one weak

1:17:45 spot always wins." It's the same with a fighter.

1:17:50 When you're fighting on pure instinct, you feel your opponent's weakness.

1:17:53 You know where they're weak, and you have to keep pressing right there.

1:17:59 For example, let's say I'm fighting Conor, right?

1:18:04 His strengths are his striking, his timing and his speed, his boxing.

1:18:11 Why would I stand and strike with him?

1:18:13 What am I supposed to do?

1:18:14 I have to put pressure on his weak spot.

1:18:17 So, That's what separates the fighters who reach success,

1:18:22 the highest level of success, and become the best of the best.

1:18:27 They know how to find an opponent's weakness, and they pressure it relentlessly.

1:18:33 So, mm, so it all comes down to having the right strategy here.

1:18:40 Your fight with Conor, I think, was the biggest fight in UFC history.

1:18:44 That's for sure.

1:18:46 Well, actually, in all of sports.

1:18:48 Do you think there will ever be another fight of that magnitude in the UFC?

1:18:52 Is it even possible?

1:18:55 Well, let's look at the history here.

1:19:00 I mean, our sport is still very young,

1:19:03 say thirty-five years old, starting from the '90s.

1:19:07 Put it this way.

1:19:09 Take, for example, the sport most similar to MMA,

1:19:14 which is, well, let's say boxing.

1:19:16 How old is boxing?

1:19:17 A hundred and fifty years?

1:19:19 Like, when you think boxing, what pops into your head?

1:19:22 Thrilla in Manila?

1:19:24 Yeah, yeah.

1:19:25 Well, I love Mike Tyson a lot too, so.

1:19:28 Well, Tyson had big fights, but Mike Tyson never had that, Signature

1:19:32 rival like Muhammad Ali had in Joe Frazier.

1:19:35 Yeah, he just didn't have one.

1:19:38 I mean, who do we have?

1:19:40 Evander Holyfield?

1:19:40 Look, Holyfield-Tyson is no Muhammad Ali.

1:19:44 Take Ali and Frazier, Thrilla in Manila, right?

1:19:48 People called it the greatest rivalry, and it still is.

1:19:53 In the 20th century, there was nothing that could compare.

1:19:56 In the 21st century, the only thing you could compare to it,

1:20:00 purely based on the numbers, is Pacquiao and Mayweather.

1:20:04 Yes, there was public interest,

1:20:06 but there wasn't the energy that there was with Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier.

1:20:11 Yeah, if I can just pause for a second, I'll check on Perplexity.

1:20:15 List the biggest boxing fights of all time.

1:20:17 It's Ali and Frazier, like you said.

1:20:19 Yeah, yeah.

1:20:20 The first, the third.

1:20:22 Well, when he lost, and then the third fight, the Thrilla in Manila.

1:20:25 And Foreman, I must say Ali versus Foreman.

1:20:28 Well, Foreman, that was the year, I think, '74, right?

1:20:31 The fight was watched by up to a billion people worldwide.

1:20:34 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:20:35 It was one of those things.

1:20:37 Politics got mixed into it too.

1:20:39 Well, it was actually a very big fight.

1:20:42 Sugar Ray Leonard, Duran,

1:20:43 Sugar Ray Leonard versus Thomas Hearns, Hagler versus Hearns.

1:20:48 Well, Hagler.

1:20:49 Hagler and Duran in Montreal.

1:20:51 Sugar Ray Leonard and Duran in Montreal when they fought,

1:20:54 when he admitted after the fight that he lost

1:20:57 the mental game and broke down before the fight.

1:20:59 But then Sugar Ray beat him later.

1:21:02 Yeah, he came back and won.

1:21:04 Yeah.

1:21:04 Well, if you look at it out of everything that stands out,

1:21:08 I think, You can mention Frazier and Muhammad Ali.

1:21:11 And there was also Joe Louis against German Max Schmeling.

1:21:15 Hitler stood behind Schmeling, and Roosevelt stood behind Louis.

1:21:19 For those who don't know this story, I just watched it recently.

1:21:24 It was something incomparable.

1:21:25 They were so big.

1:21:26 They were two of the most, the most famous athletes of their time.

1:21:32 Roosevelt was promoting Joe Louis, you know?

1:21:37 At that moment for America, it was like something incredible that a white

1:21:41 president was promoting a Black world champion.

1:21:45 And on the other hand, Hitler stood behind Schmeling.

1:21:48 It was what?

1:21:49 Nineteen thirty-six, nineteen thirty-eight.

1:21:51 They had-- They fought twice?

1:21:53 Twice.

1:21:54 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:21:55 They fought two times.

1:21:56 This wasn't just a good boxing match, just a good fight.

1:22:00 This was politics.

1:22:01 Those were nations.

1:22:03 This was politics.

1:22:04 This was nations.

1:22:06 Everything.

1:22:06 It all came together.

1:22:07 And it's the same thing with Ali too.

1:22:09 Muhammad Ali with the Vietnam War, all that stuff.

1:22:12 Yes, yes.

1:22:13 And his, and even religion is tied into it.

1:22:15 Everything here came together.

1:22:17 They simply went beyond sports.

1:22:20 It was the exact same thing when I fought Conor.

1:22:23 That fight went beyond our sport.

1:22:26 It impacted every sport because athletes of all kinds of different sports,

1:22:33 everyone who loves to compete, it didn't matter if it was football,

1:22:37 basketball, soccer, or boxing, everyone was following this.

1:22:42 And honestly, will there be a fight like that?

1:22:47 Well, it's hard for me to say, but I think it'll happen.

1:22:50 It'll happen for sure.

1:22:51 There will always be champions.

1:22:53 There will always be rivalries.

1:22:55 But when it'll happen, that's just a matter of time.

1:22:59 So it's not entirely about the athletes.

1:23:01 It's about everything combined.

1:23:02 Yeah.

1:23:02 It's everything combined.

1:23:03 The way he talked, what he stirred up,

1:23:05 the lines he crossed, touching on family, religion.

1:23:09 And then somehow on one side you had Conor,

1:23:12 this really interesting champion who knew how to hype himself up,

1:23:15 and on the other side,

1:23:17 you had this undefeated somebody from nowhere, from the mountains.

1:23:22 You know how it is.

1:23:24 It all somehow, all of it just kind of happened naturally.

1:23:28 And it wasn't staged.

1:23:29 It was real.

1:23:30 We had a real rivalry,

1:23:32 unlike the way a lot of people now just hype up interest in a fight,

1:23:36 but people feel that energy.

1:23:38 It doesn't go anywhere.

1:23:40 People can tell what's real and what's fake.

1:23:42 And because of that, we went, we went beyond our own sport.

1:23:46 That's what made this fight so massive.

1:23:50 Well, when you look into your heart back then and now, did you have anger?

1:23:54 Did you have hatred for him?

1:23:57 Back then and even now, I'd still keep a cool head.

1:24:02 Nothing has changed.

1:24:03 When you let your emotions take over,

1:24:06 when they're off the charts and you completely lose control,

1:24:10 that's a very bad place to be.

1:24:14 So you'll tire out faster.

1:24:17 You'll fall.

1:24:18 You'll fall for any kind of bait and so on.

1:24:22 I just knew that I needed to stay calm, composed,

1:24:29 to stick to the plan no matter what happened,

1:24:33 and not go beyond my emotional limits.

1:24:37 This is a very, very dangerous moment when you

1:24:41 give in to your emotions You have to control them.

1:24:46 Every single detail, every little thing has to be perfectly in place.

1:24:51 The second you let it all slip, everything becomes a total mess.

1:24:57 So once the fight was finally done, I just let all my emotions out.

1:25:02 I had to step right in and prove it, and punish him, and show them I'm better,

1:25:06 that I'm better than him, and put a final end to this whole bitter rivalry.

1:25:10 When all of that was over-- Your emotions came out?

1:25:15 that's when my emotions just went over the edge.

1:25:17 But until the fight was completely finished, starting from training,

1:25:20 you know, at the press conferences, at the weigh-ins,

1:25:24 everywhere, in front of the media, everywhere,

1:25:26 I kept myself completely under control, and I was very good at it.

1:25:31 Honestly, looking back it's been almost eight years now.

1:25:37 Looking back, well, I'm a little surprised.

1:25:39 At that point, I was a very emotional guy, too.

1:25:42 Over these eight years a lot has happened in my life,

1:25:46 but I'm surprised that I kept it together.

1:25:49 And well, you know, it wasn't easy for me to keep myself within my limits,

1:25:54 to keep myself under control like that.

1:25:57 But here, again, I'll come back to what I said, I was very lucky.

1:26:02 My father called me at that time I was here two months before the fight.

1:26:10 His advice helped me out so much because

1:26:12 for me it was not just that it mattered,

1:26:16 it was actually the most important thing for me

1:26:20 back then just to know my father's reaction,

1:26:23 how he was taking everything that was happening,

1:26:27 because there was just so much media coverage, so I knew my father was watching.

1:26:34 It was important for me to know his take.

1:26:37 I'd call and ask, and my father would even

1:26:40 tell me things I hadn't even asked him about.

1:26:42 He'd bring it up on his own.

1:26:44 Because you know the way it is with us,

1:26:47 between me and my father, in our traditions,

1:26:49 in our part of the world, in our family for generations,

1:26:52 in our village, there's just always this distance with your father.

1:26:56 Like, when you walk in, there are just so many

1:26:59 things you can't let yourself do in front of your father.

1:27:02 You have to be like, sort of like a soldier in front of a general, right?

1:27:06 If you can even make that comparison.

1:27:09 If a soldier stands at attention like

1:27:12 that, then with us it's even, even stricter.

1:27:15 Like even, just to give an example here.

1:27:20 For instance, imagine you're a father sitting there, right?

1:27:25 And your two-year-old kid walks up to you and wants to play with you.

1:27:29 You can't even, like, do that baby talk thing with your own kid.

1:27:33 You don't have that kind of friendship.

1:27:35 You know it's a friendship, but-- It's different, yes.

1:27:37 There's a certain distance that you must keep around your father.

1:27:40 You always have to be, like, completely buttoned up.

1:27:45 You have to stand like a soldier in front of your father.

1:27:47 You don't let your emotions take over.

1:27:50 At that point, just to know what my father thought,

1:27:54 who was, like, all the way across the ocean,

1:27:57 who couldn't just fly out and be there to support

1:28:00 his son and just be there by my side.

1:28:04 But for me, since he didn't have a visa,

1:28:06 I just had to know exactly what he thought.

1:28:09 I didn't care what anyone else thought.

1:28:11 I didn't care about the opinions of, like, millions,

1:28:14 tens of millions, hundreds of millions watching this fight.

1:28:18 I only ever cared about one person and his take,

1:28:22 what he thought and what he'd say to me.

1:28:25 But I couldn't call him and say, "Father,

1:28:28 what do you think about this?" Well, we never had that.

1:28:32 Well, you had to wait.

1:28:33 I would just call and wait to hear what he'd say.

1:28:36 And my father, he knew exactly where to draw the line because he was

1:28:41 in the exact same position with his own

1:28:44 father since his own father was still around.

1:28:46 And then he had a son, too, right?

1:28:50 And he understood me, how I felt about him,

1:28:53 since his relationship with his own father was the same way.

1:28:57 And in that sense, back then, my father really kept me grounded mentally.

1:29:02 He even told me something once.

1:29:08 Do you know how diamonds are, like, actually made?

1:29:12 Under great pressure.

1:29:14 He says, "You're under great pressure, and you have a choice.

1:29:19 You can break down and give up,

1:29:21 or you can get through it all properly, clearly, with dignity.

1:29:28 Go in, prepare right, make weight, recover, go in, win,

1:29:31 and settle it once and for all." And those exact kinds of moments,

1:29:36 they really, they deeply impacted me.

1:29:40 So because of those words, you could cut everything off?

1:29:44 Focus.

1:29:45 Well-- Mentally.

1:29:47 Mentally.

1:29:48 Like, if a million people showed up right there

1:29:51 and told me right outside where I was staying, at the hotel, right?

1:29:55 Like, if a million people gathered right under my window and said, "Hey,

1:29:59 we've got your back." And honestly,

1:30:02 just one call from my father, it wouldn't even compare,

1:30:05 because that one call from my father, that one piece of advice, his support,

1:30:10 his voice, it charged me up way more than absolutely everything else combined.

1:30:18 But I must say, José Aldo, who is one of the greatest fighters of all time,

1:30:23 and still Conor was arguably able to psychologically break him.

1:30:29 But with you, it seems like Conor was not able to mentally affect you.

1:30:33 Did he manage to get into your head even a little?

1:30:37 No, not at all.

1:30:40 I had a clear understanding that physically

1:30:45 and mentally I was just way stronger than him.

1:30:48 I didn't doubt myself for even 1%.

1:30:53 Well, people, they can say whatever they want.

1:30:57 He's got a massive fan base too.

1:31:00 Maybe they won't agree with that.

1:31:03 But the Almighty gave me this unshakable confidence that is

1:31:06 just really hard for me to even put into words.

1:31:10 And I just deeply believe that I was better

1:31:14 than him and that I was stronger than him,

1:31:17 and that in this matchup, well, I was supposed to win.

1:31:22 I just had this rock solid faith in myself.

1:31:27 Up until that moment, is it fair to say that this was your toughest fight?

1:31:32 Up until that moment?

1:31:33 Correct.

1:31:34 One hundred percent.

1:31:36 Because fighting's all psychology, you know?

1:31:40 It's a mental game.

1:31:41 Mentally speaking, that was my toughest fight.

1:31:47 At that point, yeah.

1:31:48 But a tougher fight came later.

1:31:50 With Gaethje?

1:31:51 With Gaethje.

1:31:52 There were a lot of factors that made it so tough.

1:31:55 Yes.

1:31:55 So can you explain?

1:31:57 You said somewhere that actually, unfortunately,

1:32:01 or at least from my perspective,

1:32:03 unfortunately, we never got to see your absolute limit.

1:32:07 Were you, uh-- Not in fights, no.

1:32:10 You've never seen my limit in fights.

1:32:13 But you said that Gaethje was the closest to it 'cause of the whole process.

1:32:18 Can you explain why it was a tough fight, your last one?

1:32:23 First and foremost, it was because I had lost my father.

1:32:25 It was hard to pull myself together.

1:32:27 Everything piled up at once.

1:32:29 My father was gone.

1:32:31 And training without my father,

1:32:35 without the person I was doing all of this for, the person

1:32:39 I wanted to become champion for, first and foremost,

1:32:42 to prove to him, uh, to prove to him that I could become the best.

1:32:50 And then the training camp itself, physically I was not in the best shape.

1:32:57 I had injury after injury after injury.

1:33:00 But mentally speaking, I stayed completely sharp.

1:33:05 Well, this is when you got injuries,

1:33:09 your mental game can slip a little, or things at home are going bad.

1:33:14 All of that impacts a person.

1:33:16 One, two, three, four.

1:33:18 All these things affect you.

1:33:20 You become, let's say not, not sharp.

1:33:23 You lose your fire.

1:33:25 Your fire leaves you, your focus leaves you, your head is somewhere else.

1:33:30 Even though you are physically there, mentally you are somewhere else.

1:33:34 But I always stayed there.

1:33:36 I knew it.

1:33:38 Nobody had any idea that was going to be my last fight.

1:33:42 No one knew about the talk I had with my mother.

1:33:45 But you knew and you were sure?

1:33:46 Well, I knew for myself.

1:33:48 This is my last fight.

1:33:49 I was never going to step into the cage again.

1:33:52 I knew it, and I had to finish it right then

1:33:55 and there because putting myself through all of that yet again,

1:33:59 it would have just been too hard on me

1:34:02 if I got injured and the fight fell through.

1:34:06 And putting my mother through all that stress again.

1:34:09 I knew that all the anxiety I go through for three months leading up to a fight,

1:34:14 my mother goes through it too.

1:34:16 I understood all of that.

1:34:17 I wanted to put an end to it because we'd already had that talk.

1:34:21 We already had an agreement.

1:34:23 All of that combined, I mean, mentally it just— I was,

1:34:28 you know, I was right on the edge.

1:34:30 Like, it was a fine line and I really was on the edge.

1:34:37 And I heard or maybe read somewhere that you said you were

1:34:42 already starting to miss it while the fight was still going on.

1:34:46 Yeah, inside the octagon.

1:34:47 I knew it would never happen again.

1:34:50 I stepped in there and I just took it all in.

1:34:53 I was fighting and just every single moment,

1:34:57 every moment, every single move, I felt it deep down.

1:35:02 And in my head, I already knew this was the final run.

1:35:07 Everything I'd been doing my entire life, it all came down to this.

1:35:11 That competitive rush, I'll never feel that anywhere else.

1:35:15 I knew deep down this was my last fight.

1:35:18 What kind of feelings were those?

1:35:20 I've never felt anything like that again.

1:35:22 Those feelings could only be experienced right there on that exact day,

1:35:26 that very evening, with that opponent inside that cage.

1:35:29 I've never had them before that night and never had them since.

1:35:33 And I don't think I'll ever be able to feel that way again.

1:35:38 I think Buvaisar said that these feelings, standing on the podium,

1:35:42 becoming an Olympic champion,

1:35:43 you only feel them in that moment when they announce you.

1:35:47 You step onto the podium.

1:35:48 That's it.

1:35:49 They announced you.

1:35:51 You won.

1:35:51 You leave.

1:35:52 That's it.

1:35:53 You only feel them there.

1:35:54 You don't feel them anywhere else.

1:35:56 And athletes live for those feelings.

1:35:57 They train their whole lives for them.

1:36:01 Do you ever think about that?

1:36:03 That in our lives, if we're lucky,

1:36:05 we only get maybe one or two moments like that at that absolute peak.

1:36:11 Yes.

1:36:11 Yes.

1:36:11 Yes.

1:36:12 Very rarely.

1:36:13 It's so rare.

1:36:14 What is happiness really?

1:36:16 The way I see it is when you experience certain feelings for a very short time.

1:36:22 You can't be constantly happy.

1:36:24 Like you achieve something and then you're happy for years.

1:36:27 It just doesn't work that way.

1:36:30 The Almighty didn't build us that way.

1:36:32 You get there even when you become a champion

1:36:35 and you fully feel that moment, you win.

1:36:38 And then you wake up the next morning and that's it.

1:36:41 Is that all I worked for?

1:36:44 There's nothing more like that.

1:36:46 You know?

1:36:47 Like, can I have seconds?

1:36:50 You can't have seconds.

1:36:51 It's like in our cafeteria.

1:36:53 Can I have seconds?

1:36:56 So well, you become champion, you win, then you wake up the next day.

1:37:00 That's it.

1:37:01 Your daily routine continues.

1:37:02 It doesn't end.

1:37:04 You've already got different things going on, different problems,

1:37:07 other tasks now, and you're like,

1:37:09 "It all went by so fast." Then you wake up the next day,

1:37:13 pack your bags, head to the airport,

1:37:15 fly out, land back home, everyone's celebrating.

1:37:18 And just like that, the next day everyone's gone.

1:37:21 That's it.

1:37:22 Everyone lives their own life.

1:37:24 And well...

1:37:27 But later on, there are moments, well, you know,

1:37:32 when you still feel the impact of that success, let's say.

1:37:37 Like let's say public recognition, for example,

1:37:40 people's recognition and recognition is legacy.

1:37:43 A lot of people get it twisted when we start talking about legacy.

1:37:47 What even is a legacy?

1:37:49 What does legacy mean, right?

1:37:52 For me personally, it is public recognition.

1:37:55 Like when people come up to you,

1:37:57 like parents come up with their kid and they say,

1:38:00 "You know, you inspire our son to get into sports.

1:38:03 You're a real role model for him." And in that exact moment,

1:38:07 it's like you just— you start to realize that none of this was in vain.

1:38:13 But here's the thing.

1:38:15 Does everyone approach every champion like that?

1:38:17 Every successful person?

1:38:18 Do people even come up to them at all?

1:38:22 That's the question.

1:38:22 There are people who became champions.

1:38:26 There are people who rose to the top of their field,

1:38:30 but they just don't inspire anyone.

1:38:33 And well, people look at you like, "Yeah, you were a champion, you know,

1:38:38 but nobody wants to be like you." There

1:38:41 are so many people like that who achieve success,

1:38:45 but they, they don't inspire the younger generation because the youth,

1:38:53 they look at you and they just don't see you as a good person.

1:38:59 And looking at it that way, sports, it's such a double-edged sword.

1:39:06 They lost themselves in it when they became champions.

1:39:09 Or maybe they never truly were.

1:39:13 If we can, I want to talk about MMA and football in that same context.

1:39:18 Let's start with MMA.

1:39:20 Who do you think are the greatest fighters of all time?

1:39:24 You said you have a few favorites.

1:39:28 Shogun, George St-Pierre, and Fedor Emelianenko.

1:39:33 Let's talk about those fighters and maybe others who interest you.

1:39:36 They all had different distinct styles.

1:39:39 So tell me why Shogun.

1:39:41 You've always said that he was important to you as a fighter,

1:39:44 and naturally he had legendary moments in Pride in two thousand and five.

1:39:49 His soccer kick.

1:39:50 Yes, that's right.

1:39:52 Well, Shogun Rua, when I was fifteen,

1:39:55 sixteen years old, he was the Pride champion.

1:39:58 At that time, for me, it was the best organization in the world.

1:40:02 The best fighters in the world competed there.

1:40:05 Fedor, Cro Cop, Shogun, Wanderlei Silva, Anderson Silva.

1:40:09 Man, they had everybody.

1:40:11 Overeem, Dan Henderson, the Nogueira brothers, the Emelianenko brothers.

1:40:16 They were the best at that time for me and honestly for MMA as a whole.

1:40:22 And right there in second place,

1:40:24 in my opinion, shining right behind Fedor was Shogun.

1:40:29 And the way he fights, no matter how they took him down, he'd get right back up.

1:40:33 They couldn't do a thing to him.

1:40:35 Yeah, his wrestling was lacking,

1:40:37 but his striking, Thai clinch, punches, kicks, knees.

1:40:41 When he landed those soccer kicks, well, he really appealed to me as a fighter.

1:40:47 Very calm, careful, very emotionally restrained and, and his fight style.

1:40:53 His style was actually at a very high level.

1:40:56 The way he fought, no other fighter ever did.

1:41:00 At that time, he really impressed me.

1:41:03 Then he crossed over to the UFC and became the UFC champion.

1:41:11 And UFC fights and the Pride fights at that time,

1:41:15 I didn't have a computer, internet, none of that.

1:41:19 I remember there was this video rental place.

1:41:22 We'd grab tapes and watch all these fights with my father.

1:41:29 Mauricio Shogun Rua to me was like the gold standard of a fighter back then.

1:41:35 I'd say right alongside Fedor and George St-Pierre.

1:41:40 And by the way, when you watched the fights with your father,

1:41:43 did you watch them for fun or analyze them too?

1:41:48 Mostly we analyzed them.

1:41:49 My father always loved to analyze fights.

1:41:52 We'd sit like this and he'd say this, this, chokes, striking, wrestling.

1:41:57 We were constantly analyzing.

1:42:00 There was a fight in two thousand and six or two thousand and seven.

1:42:04 I don't even remember the exact year.

1:42:07 Approximately around that time when George St-Pierre fought Sean Sherk.

1:42:12 We even re-watched that fight a couple of times.

1:42:16 Then George St-Pierre fought B.J.

1:42:18 Penn, the second fight, I think,

1:42:21 after the fourth round when there was a stoppage.

1:42:24 Then, well, there were many,

1:42:26 many fights and my father actually admired the fighting style,

1:42:31 the fighting style of George St-Pierre.

1:42:35 He really impressed us.

1:42:36 And my father, my father always emphasized his timing

1:42:40 of takedowns after striking how he closed the distance.

1:42:45 Um, and honestly, my whole, you know, like teenage conscious years growing up,

1:42:52 like my formative years transitioning into an adult,

1:42:55 it was all tied to tied to Pride in its prime.

1:43:00 And after the UFC bought Pride and those fighters crossed over,

1:43:05 that whole boom in 2006,

1:43:07 '7, '8 and '9, the rise of the UFC, I remember that era so vividly.

1:43:14 My father and I re-watched so many of those UFC fights.

1:43:19 Well, I have to ask about Fedor.

1:43:21 What can you say about him?

1:43:22 He had some legendary fights.

1:43:24 He beat Cro Cop, Big Nog, Mark Coleman.

1:43:29 Yeah, and Kevin Randleman.

1:43:30 And then he had those legendary fights

1:43:33 with the Japanese fighters who were big stars over there.

1:43:37 Man, I loved it.

1:43:39 Honestly, he inspired me just by the fact that he

1:43:42 was from Russia and he was a Sambo fighter.

1:43:44 He was closer to our school of training, Sambo, combat Sambo.

1:43:50 And there was this moment back in 2004, the Dagestan Combat Sambo Championship.

1:43:58 Can you imagine?

1:44:00 2004, the Dagestan Combat Sambo Championship, and Fedor showed up.

1:44:05 He showed up.

1:44:07 He came.

1:44:08 To compete in the Dagestan Open Combat

1:44:10 Sambo Championship while being the reigning Pride champion.

1:44:13 I was 15 years old at the time.

1:44:17 I was right there in the venue.

1:44:20 My father actually invited him.

1:44:21 He was sending out invitations to different schools back then.

1:44:24 It was Stary Oskol where he used to train.

1:44:28 Fedor's coaches were sent an invitation.

1:44:32 He came with his brother, Alexander.

1:44:34 They both made it to the finals back then.

1:44:37 I just remember $5,000, $3,000, $1,000, first, second, third place.

1:44:42 At heavyweight, they gave a car.

1:44:45 When the two brothers arrived, they beat everyone to get to the finals.

1:44:50 They didn't fight each other.

1:44:51 One of them took first place.

1:44:53 That was Fedor.

1:44:54 Alexander took second place.

1:44:55 I remember back then when he was warming up,

1:44:58 I was standing next to him while he warmed up.

1:45:01 It was this building, you know, a venue that fits maybe 1,500 people,

1:45:05 and over there was this partition, like a wall,

1:45:08 and everyone was warming up behind that wall.

1:45:10 At that time, well, practically very few people

1:45:12 even knew who Fedor was, but I knew Fedor.

1:45:15 I knew who he was, that he was the Pride champion.

1:45:19 At that time, he beat Nogueira, beat Mark Coleman, beat Randleman.

1:45:22 This was before his championship fight against Cro Cop.

1:45:26 I would come over and just sit there watching how he warmed up, what he did.

1:45:30 I just remember very well, I don't know, maybe Fedor will see this podcast.

1:45:35 He had a thermos.

1:45:37 He had a thermos, and he was just drinking tea.

1:45:40 And I remember he fought Ibragim Magomedov.

1:45:42 He was also a legendary fighter of ours, a heavyweight who fought in Pride, too.

1:45:49 He fought against him.

1:45:50 It was either his first or second fight, and he was warming up incredibly well.

1:45:54 I remember how he was warming up his nose and his ears.

1:45:58 I watched him, and it was unusual for me at that time.

1:46:02 I never warmed up my nose and ears.

1:46:04 I just remember— I just remember how Fedor was really working on his nose,

1:46:08 his ears, his whole face.

1:46:10 And he went, fought, came back.

1:46:13 This was in Makhachkala 2004.

1:46:15 It's the same as a UFC champion now

1:46:18 coming and fighting at the Dagestan Combat Sambo Championship.

1:46:22 Can you imagine that?

1:46:23 Back then, it was the best heavyweight organization in the world.

1:46:27 He comes there and fights.

1:46:28 So he finished a fight, goes back, and he had this big thermos with him.

1:46:34 His team was sitting separately over there.

1:46:37 He was drinking tea.

1:46:39 He just fought, walked back, poured some tea, and drank it.

1:46:42 He had something to snack on with it, maybe honey or something.

1:46:45 I just don't remember.

1:46:46 And I was, "Wow, Fedor is right here." For me,

1:46:50 that was just such a, you know, great source of motivation back then.

1:46:54 It's really hard to put those emotions into words.

1:46:57 By the way, maybe you could ask him about that on the podcast.

1:47:02 About the thermos?

1:47:03 No, no.

1:47:04 About the tea.

1:47:04 What was in it?

1:47:06 Thyme?

1:47:06 Mint?

1:47:06 What did he put in there?

1:47:09 Uh, well, I would love to talk to him on this podcast,

1:47:13 but I think he rarely does interviews.

1:47:18 I think you can reach him.

1:47:19 I can help you.

1:47:22 Well, if you could put in a good word for me.

1:47:23 Yeah, of course.

1:47:24 I think it would be interesting for people to hear him.

1:47:28 Absolutely.

1:47:29 But psychologically, he's kind of like you in a way.

1:47:35 You mean calm?

1:47:37 Yeah.

1:47:38 Yes, that calmness.

1:47:40 You see the Pride era, those huge fights,

1:47:44 those really tough matchups, and still he always stayed calm.

1:47:50 It's his aura.

1:47:51 Yeah?

1:47:52 I don't know about others, but for me, that was his aura.

1:47:55 The fact that he'd come out with such a calm,

1:47:58 cool-headed look and knock out giants, strong fighters at that time, right?

1:48:04 You know, we used to joke about his face,

1:48:08 that he, kind of looks like a kindergarten teacher, you know?

1:48:14 And then he goes out there and knocks out absolute giants.

1:48:20 And he was like that.

1:48:22 Both before and after the fight, he never showed much emotion.

1:48:25 But I think we're a little different in that regard.

1:48:29 I think Fedor, by temperament, is calmer than I am.

1:48:34 That's my impression.

1:48:36 But with that cold-blooded calmness of his, I

1:48:39 think he got to a lot of people mentally.

1:48:45 It's like something's happening inside both of you,

1:48:49 like something's boiling inside.

1:48:50 So when we look at your face-- Of course it's boiling.

1:48:56 What do you think?

1:48:57 You know what?

1:48:58 It's one thing when it's boiling inside and you show it,

1:49:01 but there are some who can't hide their feelings.

1:49:05 But it's a different thing when it's boiling

1:49:07 inside and on the surface you stay cold,

1:49:10 cold-blooded, calm, and you can handle all these different

1:49:13 emotions that hit you at the same time.

1:49:15 There are a lot of them, and they all hit differently.

1:49:18 When you compete, what makes a fighter,

1:49:21 an athlete at the highest level so unique is

1:49:25 that so many different emotions hit you at the same time.

1:49:29 Fear, nerves, the fact that people are watching you,

1:49:34 the thought that you might perform badly,

1:49:37 that you might not show what you've trained for, that you might mess it up,

1:49:43 that you might, I don't know, fall.

1:49:46 So much enters your head, and you can put each emotion where it belongs.

1:49:51 So, you know, if all of that gets inside your head and turns into chaos,

1:49:57 you won't be able to handle it emotionally, but you stay cold-blooded.

1:50:01 And you know that if you don't handle these emotions that are coming at you,

1:50:07 if you don't handle this pressure, then it will be difficult for you to compete

1:50:12 because the main competition is against yourself first.

1:50:16 You fight yourself, you beat yourself,

1:50:19 and only then do you actually start competing with your opponent.

1:50:24 So I think it happens to everyone, not just him or me.

1:50:28 The big difference here is how much you can control it.

1:50:33 Fedor himself famously said, "The only person who can defeat me is me.

1:50:37 The only person who can beat me is me."-

1:50:40 He was talking about that fight with yourself, I'm sure.

1:50:42 Because if you lose to yourself, then you'll lose to your opponent very easily.

1:50:49 There's an interesting thing I came across.

1:50:52 Adam Saitiev said that high-level athletes often make a mistake,

1:50:57 and what they do wrong is that when they feel fear, they tend to ignore it.

1:51:04 He believes that you have to confront that fear and overcome it.

1:51:10 Yes.

1:51:11 Psychologists talk about how to work through those thoughts when they arise.

1:51:16 You know, when fear comes up and you feel it, that's absolutely normal.

1:51:22 It's what the Almighty put in us.

1:51:27 People get scared, people get cold, people feel pain, people get hungry.

1:51:32 These are things that are inside all of us.

1:51:36 The real question is how you deal with them,

1:51:39 how you overcome them within yourself.

1:51:42 100% you can't ignore it, and you must work through it.

1:51:46 You have to answer the questions, "Why did this happen?

1:51:48 Could I do it this way instead?" And this comes only with experience,

1:51:53 only with experience.

1:51:56 And the more you compete, you know, the more you train and the more you face it.

1:52:02 Some people actually try to avoid that moment.

1:52:06 But the more you face it, the better and better you'll become each time.

1:52:14 It's the same with athletes.

1:52:16 They get nervous.

1:52:17 That's what we call the jitters, right?

1:52:19 At first, whenever someone competes, they get the jitters.

1:52:23 But when you keep competing over and over again,

1:52:26 you gradually learn how to channel those nerves in the right direction.

1:52:33 Then it gets easier for you.

1:52:35 And in order to get there, you have to compete.

1:52:38 And what is competition?

1:52:39 You meet this fear face to face.

1:52:42 You don't avoid it.

1:52:43 A lot of guys are staying away from competitions.

1:52:48 When they're young, they have this tension,

1:52:50 this self-consciousness, this fear, the jitters.

1:52:53 They're nervous.

1:52:53 They can't sleep at night.

1:52:55 You have to go through all of that yourself.

1:52:59 Nobody can do it for you.

1:53:00 A coach can train you.

1:53:02 A coach can teach you.

1:53:03 But all he can say is, "Practice, practice,

1:53:06 practice." Then there's you, alone with your own feelings.

1:53:11 When you lie down, when you wake up,

1:53:15 when you walk, when you're by yourself, when you eat,

1:53:18 there are so many moments when a person has

1:53:21 to go through all of this on his own.

1:53:25 And when you have to go through this over and over again, some people back away.

1:53:31 They don't want to face it.

1:53:34 And what do you need for that?

1:53:37 Patience.

1:53:37 You have to come and endure it and go through all of it,

1:53:42 through your skin, through your muscles, through your mind.

1:53:45 You must let all of this pass through you and overcome it.

1:53:49 And each time you'll get better at it.

1:53:54 A good example of that is the third person you mentioned,

1:53:57 George St-Pierre, who by the way sends his regards.

1:54:01 I train with him a lot, and he has a very deep respect for you.

1:54:05 But he didn't give me much good advice because when I

1:54:07 told him I was going to train with you, he told me...

1:54:10 What did he say?

1:54:11 He texted me, "If you die, you die." That's what he said.

1:54:17 Good advice.

1:54:17 He's a wise man.

1:54:19 Didn't support me and said, "Say hi."- Tell him I say hi, too.

1:54:23 As we were talking about, he himself has spoken about this, that he was

1:54:29 afraid and always felt fear before every single fight.

1:54:34 That's interesting.

1:54:35 One of the greatest fighters-- In history, yeah.

1:54:40 And even he feels fear.

1:54:42 He's not afraid to admit it.

1:54:44 Everybody has fear.

1:54:45 Everybody gets afraid.

1:54:46 But I don't know how big that fear was for him.

1:54:51 I really don't know.

1:54:53 We never discussed it.

1:54:54 But I've watched a lot of his interviews, his fights, and his training camps.

1:55:02 The way he analyzed his past fights and all that, the way I see it,

1:55:07 he's a very sensitive person.

1:55:08 There are people like that too.

1:55:10 Some guys take all of this very lightly.

1:55:13 Like, "Okay, we fight tomorrow.

1:55:15 We'll see who my opponent is and how he shows up,

1:55:19 right?" But there are others who,

1:55:22 who find it very difficult to handle psychologically.

1:55:26 But the Almighty gave me this kind of calmness.

1:55:30 Sometimes I'd get to the arena,

1:55:33 and they bring you in four hours before the fight.

1:55:36 They have to weigh you, they have to do doping control,

1:55:41 and they have to tape you up.

1:55:43 There are so many athletic commission procedures.

1:55:47 Every state has different rules, how they bring you into the arena and all that.

1:55:53 Sometimes I'd get there four hours early and think,

1:55:56 "What am I supposed to do?" So I make myself a little bed and say,

1:56:01 "Please, Keep it quiet." I would lie down.

1:56:04 I could sleep there for an hour, maybe an hour and a half.

1:56:07 That's it.

1:56:08 Wake up, warm up, and then I could go out and fight.

1:56:12 And some guys, they don't sleep for two days before the fight.

1:56:16 Believe me, there are fighters who don't sleep the night before a fight,

1:56:20 and it's very hard on them.

1:56:22 It's not really fear.

1:56:24 It's hard to describe with just one emotion.

1:56:28 It's too many emotions that come over a person, and they can't fall asleep.

1:56:34 It's panic, it's fear, it's worry, it's nervousness, it's the jitters.

1:56:39 All of that builds up, and the person just can't fall asleep.

1:56:44 So in that regard, the Almighty gave me a little more calmness than others.

1:56:51 I had, you know, such a cool head and calmness before the fights.

1:56:58 Now you're in this new position as a leader,

1:57:02 and you're looking at all these athletes,

1:57:05 these young guys who are already at the very top of the world.

1:57:09 And I think they're all very different from one another psychologically,

1:57:13 physically, and stylistically.

1:57:15 What can you say as a coach?

1:57:20 I know you're not a coach, but as a leader,

1:57:22 how do you figure out what each person needs?

1:57:26 Like now we were watching Umar prepare.

1:57:30 That each person needs something different.

1:57:33 Yes, everyone is different.

1:57:34 Different styles, different mentalities, different mindsets,

1:57:39 different approaches to fight week and to preparation as a whole.

1:57:44 But you have to adapt to all of it.

1:57:47 Here, you can't just take one approach.

1:57:49 Let's say we take my approach and apply it to everyone else,

1:57:56 to Usman, Islam, and Umar.

1:57:59 It doesn't work like that.

1:58:02 Everyone needs their own approach.

1:58:04 I knew them since they were nobody, and I know them now when they are the best.

1:58:09 So you have to treat each one differently.

1:58:12 I'm very lucky to have Javier Mendez.

1:58:14 He's been by my side since 2012.

1:58:18 And when I became a coach after I finished my career,

1:58:22 he was there with me as a coach.

1:58:25 I switched from being a fighter to a coaching role.

1:58:28 My father was no longer with us.

1:58:30 And together with Javier Mendez,

1:58:32 we've been guiding them for these last six years.

1:58:36 And his experience helps me tremendously because there is no coach,

1:58:42 no MMA coach with the kind of results Javier Mendez has.

1:58:47 You know?

1:58:48 So many champions, double champions, UFC fighters.

1:58:52 So many people have trained under him,

1:58:56 from Frank Shamrock all the way to Islam Makhachev.

1:59:00 So many fighters have trained under him,

1:59:03 which makes things very easy for me because I have Javier Mendez by my side,

1:59:08 and he can help me with so many things.

1:59:12 What do you think is the secret behind Javier's genius?

1:59:15 Why is he such a great coach for so many different athletes?

1:59:21 It's the mental side of things.

1:59:22 I'm not gonna say he's one of the best at holding

1:59:26 pads or anything like that, but his understanding of MMA itself,

1:59:31 his approach to training camp, to the whole preparation process,

1:59:37 and the amount of attention he pays to sparring inside the cage.

1:59:42 I'm not talking about those sparring sessions with 50 people

1:59:45 in the gym and everyone is sparring with each other.

1:59:49 For example, when I was preparing for a five-round fight,

1:59:53 he would always bring in two or three high-level opponents,

1:59:56 constantly rotating in fresh sparring partners.

2:00:00 And he would watch and analyze.

2:00:02 I don't remember him ever missing a single sparring session since 2012.

2:00:06 Can you imagine?

2:00:07 14 years have gone by, and right now we're in training camp.

2:00:13 He's there for every training session, morning and evening.

2:00:17 He's at every sparring session, watching everyone,

2:00:20 coaching them, giving advice, guiding them.

2:00:23 He's incredibly dedicated to what he does.

2:00:25 He's either all in or he steps away completely.

2:00:31 He never shows up and gives only 50%.

2:00:35 I remember one situation.

2:00:36 Abubakar was getting ready to fight in WSOF,

2:00:40 and I had another student fighting there as well.

2:00:43 Abubakar went through the entire preparation with us, but the other guy didn't.

2:00:48 When we got there, I told the coach, "Coach,

2:00:51 can you work his corner with me too?" He said,

2:00:54 "You know, Khabib, I haven't seen his preparation.

2:00:56 I don't know what he's capable of.

2:00:58 He didn't train under me.

2:01:00 But since you're asking, I'll do it.

2:01:03 But for the future, remember, I don't really like to corner guys I haven't

2:01:08 prepared." I didn't understand him then, but now I do.

2:01:12 This was 2016 or maybe 2017.

2:01:14 I don't want to be wrong.

2:01:17 And now I understand.

2:01:20 Now when people ask me, I'm like, "I didn't prepare you.

2:01:24 I don't know how ready you are." I'm not ready to go in there

2:01:28 and give all my energy to someone who didn't go through camp with me.

2:01:34 Now I understand that.

2:01:35 At that time, I told the coach,

2:01:37 "Can you come out and corner him with me?" He said,

2:01:40 "No problem." We went out there, Abubakar won his fight,

2:01:45 and the other guy's fight ended in a draw.

2:01:49 But that's not really what I'm getting at.

2:01:53 I've come to the point where if I haven't trained someone for two,

2:01:56 three, or four months,

2:01:58 I don't like to corner them because they didn't go through a full training camp,

2:02:02 and I don't know how they'll respond in the third, fourth, or fifth round.

2:02:09 I don't know how he prepared.

2:02:10 I don't know how ready he is to go into those deep waters.

2:02:14 That's why I try not to corner just anyone.

2:02:17 I learned that from Javier.

2:02:21 So you need to know he can go into those deep waters.

2:02:25 How deep he can go.

2:02:26 I need to know exactly what he's capable of.

2:02:30 What can you say about one of the greatest fighters and athletes ever,

2:02:34 Daniel DC Cormier, who you train with?

2:02:39 You guys joke around all the time,

2:02:40 so it's easy to forget how great he really is.

2:02:43 What can you say about him as a training partner, as a coach, as a person?

2:02:49 When we talk about DC, we have to go back to 2004, 2008.

2:02:54 He was a two-time Olympian.

2:02:56 He represented Team USA at the Olympic Games,

2:03:00 and that carries a lot of weight in this sport,

2:03:04 especially in the 96-kilo division.

2:03:07 And he is a two-time Olympian.

2:03:10 Then he transitioned to MMA, won a few fights on the regional scene,

2:03:14 went to Strikeforce, won fights there.

2:03:16 They put him into the Grand Prix.

2:03:19 He won the Grand Prix, became heavyweight champion, and then went to the UFC.

2:03:24 When he moved to the UFC, he cut down to 205 pounds to make

2:03:29 room for Cain Velasquez because they were best friends.

2:03:32 Cain was the heavyweight champion.

2:03:35 So he moved to 205, and they both became champions,

2:03:39 one at light heavyweight and one at heavyweight.

2:03:43 Later, when Cain lost the title, he moved to heavyweight and won there too.

2:03:48 He's one of the most unique athletes who has ever lived.

2:03:52 How many athletes do you know who competed at the World Championships,

2:03:57 at the Olympic Games in freestyle wrestling,

2:04:00 then transitioned to MMA and became Strikeforce champion,

2:04:04 UFC light heavyweight champion, and UFC heavyweight champion?

2:04:10 And he's also remembered for his rivalry with one of the greatest,

2:04:14 if not the greatest, Jon Jones.

2:04:17 But by the time he fought Jon Jones, he was no longer at his peak.

2:04:23 I think he was already pushing 40.

2:04:27 Even though we have this friendly, joking relationship because he's such a fun,

2:04:34 interesting guy, as an athlete though, he's truly one of a kind.

2:04:42 As a commentator too, he's very good with words.

2:04:46 Educated, well-mannered, strong.

2:04:49 He has so many great qualities.

2:04:52 Daniel Cormier is one of those people who I think can truly inspire others.

2:05:02 So who usually wins when you guys wrestle?

2:05:06 You or DC?

2:05:09 Well, he's got a few years on me.

2:05:11 But back in my prime, when I was competing at lightweight,

2:05:14 I weighed around 84, 85, maybe 86 kilos.

2:05:18 DC was always around 107, 110.

2:05:22 Those are completely different weight classes.

2:05:25 DC was better at wrestling and as an Olympian too, all joking aside.

2:05:32 So you feel—- Back then it was really tough, of course, but now it's different.

2:05:36 Now I can go after him.

2:05:39 But I learned so much from Cormier.

2:05:41 Honestly, so much.

2:05:43 As a person, a wrestler, and a fighter.

2:05:46 You know, we spent our best years together at AKA from 2012 to 2020.

2:05:54 We've shared so many memories and moments together as well.

2:06:00 I just think it's a shame that people don't talk

2:06:02 about him as one of the top five, top 10.

2:06:05 Well, top 10 for sure.

2:06:06 One of the top 10 greatest, no question.

2:06:08 Absolutely.

2:06:09 Yeah, I definitely think so.

2:06:10 It's a shame, but you see this in football and in other sports too.

2:06:13 One rivalry can overshadow an entire legacy.

2:06:16 For DC, it's Jon Jones.

2:06:19 Well, Jon Jones was the better athlete.

2:06:22 There's no doubt about that.

2:06:23 But DC was right there with him.

2:06:26 Yes, Jon Jones won, but DC gave him a real fight.

2:06:32 He was that very person, you know, who actually made Jon Jones train harder.

2:06:39 People shouldn't forget that.

2:06:41 I'm sure Jon Jones prepared for that fight

2:06:44 like it was the hardest fight of his life.

2:06:49 Well, we've talked about different athletes, about Umar,

2:06:53 but now let's talk about Islam Makhachev,

2:06:55 one of your closest brothers, who's at the very top of the world.

2:07:00 You've known each other.

2:07:01 You've trained together for more than 20 years.

2:07:05 In your opinion, what makes him such a special wrestler and fighter?

2:07:09 Why has he reached such heights?

2:07:11 Why is he a great fighter?

2:07:14 Well, let's start with the fact that Islam has

2:07:16 been doing this for His whole life, since childhood.

2:07:20 And I've known him since childhood too.

2:07:23 We went to the same school, lived in the same neighborhood,

2:07:26 trained at the same gym, and he was my father's student.

2:07:30 And it's worth mentioning, he was one of my father's favorite students.

2:07:36 One of the best students.

2:07:39 My father saw in him this potential for greatness in how hard he trained.

2:07:44 That's what I was talking about at the beginning of the podcast.

2:07:51 When you go into the dark,

2:07:54 uncomfortable room and stay there for a long time, no matter how hard it gets.

2:08:00 He knew how to make sacrifices.

2:08:03 He was very disciplined.

2:08:05 Nobody reaches this level by accident.

2:08:08 It's impossible without exceptional natural gifts.

2:08:12 And he has them.

2:08:15 He's gifted.

2:08:16 Allah blessed him with those gifts.

2:08:19 And he's deeply devoted to what he does.

2:08:23 We basically grew up together, right?

2:08:27 I'm three years older than Islam.

2:08:30 And I was always a little bigger, a little older than him.

2:08:34 So when we were amateurs, I competed in slightly heavier weight classes.

2:08:39 But we worked together a lot.

2:08:42 And Islam benefited tremendously from training with me.

2:08:47 We trained together for many years.

2:08:49 And he never had to go anywhere to find

2:08:52 a sparring partner because he always had one in the gym.

2:08:57 So I developed by training with the older guys in the gym,

2:09:00 the stronger guys, the better guys when I was young.

2:09:04 Then when they left, I was the one in front.

2:09:06 Islam kept growing, growing, growing.

2:09:09 Now I left.

2:09:10 Islam is the one in front.

2:09:12 And now other guys are developing through him.

2:09:15 This is a kind of chain that exists in a gym,

2:09:18 in a training system that produces the best fighters in the world.

2:09:23 And in this chain, Islam was always behind me.

2:09:26 If I was behind someone, Islam was behind me.

2:09:30 Now others are following.

2:09:32 Islam, Usman, Amru, and other guys.

2:09:35 You could put them against any of the best fighters in the world right now,

2:09:39 and they would perform very well.

2:09:43 So in this chain we've had since 2003,

2:09:47 and now it's already 2026, that's 23 years.

2:09:52 Islam was the one coming up behind me.

2:09:57 And now there are younger guys coming up behind Islam.

2:10:01 And it's no secret that Islam will turn 35 in October.

2:10:05 But what makes me happy is that there are younger guys coming up behind him.

2:10:10 I left.

2:10:11 Islam stepped in.

2:10:12 One day Islam will leave too, and others will take his place.

2:10:16 And this cycle, it never ends.

2:10:18 It keeps going, and it keeps pulling the next generation forward.

2:10:22 At the beginning, a lot of people are involved.

2:10:25 But as you gradually climb higher, higher, and higher,

2:10:28 the road gets narrower, and fewer and fewer people remain.

2:10:32 And alongside Islam, a lot of guys were developing while training with me.

2:10:38 But Islam made it all the way because of his work ethic,

2:10:44 his discipline, and let's call it sacrifice.

2:10:47 He gave up a lot to reach this level.

2:10:52 This isn't easy.

2:10:53 You have to make sacrifices.

2:10:56 You have to make sacrifices.

2:10:58 You have to give up parties.

2:11:01 You have to sacrifice sleep.

2:11:04 You have to sacrifice your time.

2:11:07 There are so many things you have to give up.

2:11:10 You have to dedicate your entire life to this sport,

2:11:13 putting aside all the things that can distract you.

2:11:17 You train, you sleep, you eat, you wake up, and then you do it all over again.

2:11:23 Only then can you reach the level that Islam reached.

2:11:26 That's what makes him unique.

2:11:30 Were there any small but interesting differences between you and Islam,

2:11:36 psychologically speaking?

2:11:38 There are many.

2:11:39 Psychologically, he's very solid too.

2:11:41 I've been around him through so many training camps and so many fights.

2:11:46 He's built very strong mentally.

2:11:49 Of course, we're different in certain things,

2:11:51 but in terms of our fighter's attitude toward their work,

2:11:54 we have a lot in common.

2:11:56 A lot.

2:11:58 You also train a lot.

2:11:59 Yeah, absolutely.

2:12:00 A lot.

2:12:01 And I think he...

2:12:02 Well, first I have to say, I watched you train yesterday,

2:12:08 and it made me really happy to see that you still love this so deeply.

2:12:12 You know, it's hard to love something for such a long time.

2:12:18 People finish and move on.

2:12:19 They retire and move on.

2:12:21 But me, it's been six years since I retired,

2:12:24 and I still haven't let go of wrestling, of competition.

2:12:28 I still go to the gym, do cardio, lift, wrestle, grapple.

2:12:32 I never let it go.

2:12:34 It's still with me.

2:12:37 And yesterday I told you that last week I did 200 minutes of live grappling.

2:12:44 This week is a little different though, because I'm just focused on Umar,

2:12:48 traveling, and everything that comes with that.

2:12:53 So this week it's going to be less.

2:12:55 Still, I wrestle.

2:12:55 I don't let go.

2:12:57 I love it.

2:12:57 I love this energy.

2:12:59 I love that feeling after wrestling.

2:13:00 You wrestle, let's say 40 minutes.

2:13:03 Yesterday I still wanted more.

2:13:05 Just now I wrestled with you, with Islam, maybe 20 minutes,

2:13:10 but still it's not enough to get that feeling, that 100% feeling.

2:13:16 I need around 40 minutes of wrestling, something like that.

2:13:20 I don't think most people listening to us will understand that.

2:13:27 But I think some people watching,

2:13:30 especially grappling and jujitsu fans, will understand me.

2:13:36 Well, to be honest, sometimes there are cameras around you,

2:13:39 and for me at least, that's harder.

2:13:42 I like it when there are none.

2:13:45 I usually train with no cameras.

2:13:47 With you was one of the rare occasions when I come to the gym and-- You allow?

2:13:53 When I allow it, yes.

2:13:55 Thanks for that.

2:13:56 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

2:13:57 This is very, very rare for me.

2:13:58 Even with Embedded, with UFC, with everyone who comes,

2:14:02 I always say, "Don't film."- Thank you, brother.

2:14:06 I don't know why, but cameras get in the way for me because this sport,

2:14:11 this preparation, it happens here,

2:14:13 and that whole world where celebrities matter, it gets in the way.

2:14:18 Yes, it gets in the way.

2:14:21 But 99.9% of our training sessions happen without cameras.

2:14:26 Well, thank you, brother.

2:14:27 Let me ask you this.

2:14:28 A lot of people say you're number one, the greatest of all time.

2:14:32 Do you think Islam has a chance to become the greatest MMA fighter of all time?

2:14:39 Well, I've never said that, and I never set out to become

2:14:43 number one or to become the greatest athlete and so on.

2:14:47 I never had that.

2:14:50 My goal was always to become the best in my sport,

2:14:54 to become a world champion, to prove to myself that I could do it.

2:14:59 But it's hard to choose just one person.

2:15:03 Even now, look, there's always going to be St-Pierre,

2:15:06 there's always going to be Demetrious Johnson,

2:15:09 there's always going to be Jon Jones, there's always going to be Fedor.

2:15:14 If people want to include me in that conversation,

2:15:17 if Islam gets into that conversation,

2:15:19 if there's Cain Velasquez, Cormier, and so on, I'd be happy about that.

2:15:24 And that's my goal, that someone from our team,

2:15:28 from the people closest to me, gets there too.

2:15:31 If Jon Jones is there, why can't Islam be there?

2:15:35 If Demetrious Johnson is there with 11 title defenses, why can't Islam be there?

2:15:41 It's a good question.

2:15:42 Why not?

2:15:44 I'd like him to break all those records, to overtake Jon Jones,

2:15:48 Demetrious Johnson, and St-Pierre, no matter how much respect I have for them.

2:15:54 Islam has a chance, but time is starting to run out a little.

2:15:58 This worries me because, for example,

2:16:01 Jones fought at light heavyweight and now at heavyweight.

2:16:04 Time is a little kinder to those divisions.

2:16:07 Even at 38, you can still compete at the heavier weights.

2:16:12 You don't need the same reaction speed and all that.

2:16:16 But when you compete in lighter weight classes, 155, 170, age really catches up.

2:16:23 I think active fighters, retired fighters, wrestlers, athletes,

2:16:31 especially those who competed in these weight classes,

2:16:35 will understand what I'm talking about.

2:16:39 When you're 35 and when you're 32 and when you're 38,

2:16:43 you're a totally different athlete.

2:16:46 From where you are now, you can see the entire fight business,

2:16:50 and you know Dana White very well.

2:16:52 I'd say he's one of those rare geniuses in sports business, in business, period.

2:17:01 I don't think the UFC would exist without Dana White.

2:17:04 There are important people there, of course,

2:17:06 but he's really at the center of it all.

2:17:09 What can you say about him?

2:17:12 What qualities, what traits have made him such a successful businessman?

2:17:19 First of all, I think if you look at it, I also kind of...

2:17:25 Well, not kind of, I understand his position a little.

2:17:29 I also ran my own league for a couple of years.

2:17:31 I know what the relationship between a promoter,

2:17:34 well, a league owner and the fighters is like,

2:17:38 not just as a fighter dealing with a league owner.

2:17:43 I've been on both sides of it.

2:17:48 He's very good at separating business from personal relationships.

2:17:51 For him, the two never overlap.

2:17:54 He draws a clear line between them.

2:17:57 In business, he's extremely cold-blooded.

2:18:02 He's made decisions, some major decisions,

2:18:08 regardless of whether people like them or not.

2:18:12 And those decisions, they were best for the league and for the UFC.

2:18:16 He always had that mentality, you know,

2:18:19 like in those mafia movies where family comes first, right?

2:18:25 Well, for him, the UFC always came first.

2:18:29 That's the only way he was able to push their brand forward.

2:18:32 Of course, a lot of people contributed to that success.

2:18:35 There were a lot of them.

2:18:37 You have to give credit to Bruce Buffer,

2:18:41 to Joe Rogan, to the commentators who were there.

2:18:45 There were a lot of things that made the UFC unique,

2:18:47 but, but the cherry on top was always Dana.

2:18:51 Dana did an incredible job promoting the UFC, and he still does.

2:18:55 No matter what, the UFC is always there.

2:18:59 You know?

2:19:00 No matter how, no matter how unsuccessful a particular event might be,

2:19:05 the UFC is still the UFC.

2:19:07 When they go into a new market outside the United States,

2:19:10 even if a show doesn't go so well,

2:19:13 people will still come back for the next event simply because it's the UFC.

2:19:17 Over the last 30 plus years,

2:19:19 they've established themselves as the premier MMA league in the world,

2:19:22 and they put on the best fights.

2:19:25 So in that respect, I think a huge part of the credit goes to Dana.

2:19:29 The fact that the UFC has come this far is a major achievement.

2:19:33 Building a league like that is incredibly difficult- Yeah.

2:19:36 A lot of people have money and a lot of people have tried.

2:19:38 Many have come in.

2:19:39 But building what the UFC has built is extremely hard.

2:19:43 And what they've achieved now with Paramount, that's something unique.

2:19:47 It's a unique achievement.

2:19:48 In just 30 years, they've grown to a level

2:19:51 that some entire sports needed 100 or 150 years to reach.

2:19:56 And you have to give credit where it's due,

2:19:58 and that credit goes to one person, Dana White.

2:20:00 So I think that his genius as a promoter, the way he promotes and pushes fights,

2:20:07 and pushes his league as a whole, that is just remarkable.

2:20:12 In my opinion, that's something a lot of people could learn from him.

2:20:17 You mentioned Joe Rogan.

2:20:18 You know, he's a friend of mine.

2:20:21 I love listening to his podcast,

2:20:23 but I've never actually heard the two of you have a conversation together.

2:20:26 Do you think that's something that could happen in the future?

2:20:29 Yes, of course.

2:20:30 I know you have a great deal of respect for him,

2:20:32 and he has a great deal of respect for you.

2:20:34 I can't wait to hear the two of you talk.

2:20:37 Same here.

2:20:38 If we're talking about the people most responsible

2:20:40 for promoting the UFC, I'd put Dana first.

2:20:42 But second place, without question, goes to Joe Rogan.

2:20:45 It's honestly hard to imagine the UFC without him.

2:20:48 It'll be hard when he's no longer part of it.

2:20:52 And what he's achieved in his own field,

2:20:54 what he's achieved in podcasting, he's the best.

2:20:58 And what he's built, the way he commentates,

2:21:01 the way he communicates, his knowledge, his charisma,

2:21:06 the way he carries a conversation, I think a lot of people could learn from him.

2:21:11 And as for me going on his podcast, I think it's inevitable.

2:21:14 God willing, if we're given the time and the health,

2:21:17 we'll have a lot to talk about.

2:21:19 There are so many different topics we could discuss together,

2:21:22 so a conversation with Joe Rogan would be very interesting.

2:21:24 I'd definitely like to talk to him.

2:21:27 I agree.

2:21:28 But it's interesting, right now you and I are speaking Russian.

2:21:31 Language is a tricky thing.

2:21:33 Yeah, exactly.

2:21:33 With him you need to come prepared.

2:21:36 Because if you show up unprepared, he will just eat you alive.

2:21:40 You have to be ready.

2:21:42 It's a mental battle, too.

2:21:44 Yeah.

2:21:44 And by the way, you know,

2:21:46 you've mentioned a few times that you'd like to improve your Arabic.

2:21:51 Language is such an interesting thing.

2:21:54 It opens doors to understanding.

2:21:57 It allows you to understand culture and history on a much deeper level.

2:22:01 Absolutely.

2:22:01 Without the language, it's very difficult.

2:22:03 I'm starting to study Arabic now,

2:22:05 but I've been reading the Quran since I was a child.

2:22:08 I know the the alphabet very well, the pronunciation rules.

2:22:12 I can read it well.

2:22:15 But the Quran and Arabic as a spoken language are different.

2:22:20 I wouldn't say they're drastically different, but they are different.

2:22:24 If you want to speak it conversationally,

2:22:26 you need to study grammar and learn it in a different way.

2:22:31 I'd also like to ask you about Ali, Ali Abdelaziz.

2:22:35 He's such a central figure.

2:22:37 He represents so many champions.

2:22:40 What do you respect about him?

2:22:42 What do you think makes him a genius?

2:22:44 Because he's such a unique person.

2:22:47 Well, I met Ali in 2014.

2:22:50 We've been working together ever since.

2:22:54 Over the years, a lot of fighters came to him through me, a lot of guys.

2:23:01 And in all this time, in the 12 years we've known each other,

2:23:08 I don't— I can barely remember any fighters leaving him, except maybe a couple.

2:23:17 But hundreds of fighters have worked with him, hundreds of fighters,

2:23:20 and so many guys still keep in touch with him,

2:23:23 and he has very good relationships with them.

2:23:25 I'd also like to note that Ali, you know, he has one unique quality.

2:23:32 People either really love him or really hate him.

2:23:36 You can't just be neutral about him, you know, like, "Yeah, I know Ali.

2:23:40 He's all right." No one will say about him, "Well, you know, I know him.

2:23:44 He's a good guy." You'll have strong feelings for him.

2:23:49 Either you hate him or you really love him.

2:23:53 And I am in in that category of people who really...

2:23:58 How do I put it?

2:24:00 Who are very fond of him.

2:24:02 And I have a good relationship with him.

2:24:04 I know his family.

2:24:05 I know his children.

2:24:06 His kids grew up before my eyes.

2:24:08 When I first met him, he only had two or three children.

2:24:12 Now he has more.

2:24:15 This is the kind of person he is.

2:24:19 You need to get to know him better to really appreciate him,

2:24:23 and he will stand by you until the very end.

2:24:27 And yeah, of course,

2:24:29 there are people who have who have mixed feelings about him.

2:24:33 But that's my point.

2:24:34 It's hard to feel indifferent about Ali.

2:24:37 "I know Ali.

2:24:38 He's a very good guy." No, it's different with him.

2:24:42 People will either tell you, "I know Ali and I absolutely love him,"

2:24:45 or, "I know Ali and I can't stand him."- So,

2:24:49 it's fair to say that most people who-- Yes, yes-...

2:24:52 who really know him and work with him tend to stay with him for life?

2:24:57 Yes.

2:24:57 And respect him.

2:24:58 That's important.

2:24:59 And his judo isn't bad either.

2:25:02 It was.

2:25:03 He showed me.

2:25:03 It was.

2:25:04 It was, it was.

2:25:05 Oh, right, you were just wrestling yesterday.

2:25:07 All right.

2:25:08 Let's talk about football now.

2:25:10 I want to ask you something,

2:25:12 and I need to be careful here because after yesterday,

2:25:15 I realize just how much you know about the game.

2:25:18 I can't even pretend I know what I'm talking about anymore.

2:25:21 I need to tread carefully.

2:25:24 Yes.

2:25:24 If we're gonna go there-...

2:25:26 don't make any mistakes.

2:25:27 I hope you did your research.

2:25:29 I'm shaking now.

2:25:30 You prepared?

2:25:31 Wait.

2:25:31 We could talk about a lot of interesting teams.

2:25:35 You talked about the moment when you fell in love with football.

2:25:38 That was the Champions League final in 1998.

2:25:43 It was Real Madrid against Juventus.

2:25:45 It was the moment when you, you realized that Real Madrid was your team,

2:25:51 the club you've continued to love and support ever since.

2:25:54 Tell me about that very first moment when you watched the game with your father.

2:26:00 What do you remember?

2:26:01 You know, this is such an important sport for you,

2:26:04 for millions, hundreds of millions, billions of people.

2:26:09 Billions, yes.

2:26:09 What do you remember most about that game, and what did you fall in love with?

2:26:13 Well, first of all, my father was a huge football fan.

2:26:15 He was a good player himself.

2:26:17 When we lived in the village, they played almost every day.

2:26:20 Football has always been very popular where I'm from.

2:26:23 The kids, the young people, everyone plays.

2:26:26 In fact, we still have this tradition in the village.

2:26:30 As long as I can remember, it was a tradition to...

2:26:35 for each street to put together its own team for a tournament with, eh,

2:26:40 group stages, then the quarterfinals, semifinals, and the final.

2:26:43 So it became a real tradition, and everyone would.

2:26:48 Everyone there follows football, the kids, the young people.

2:26:52 And my father played, too.

2:26:55 Whenever there was a big match on, I'd always sit with him,

2:26:59 in front of the television and watch.

2:27:03 The first football memory I have that's

2:27:05 really clear and conscious goes back to 1996.

2:27:08 I couldn't tell you where we were watching it.

2:27:11 I don't remember, but I remember sitting next to my father.

2:27:15 It was the European Championship semifinal, Germany and England.

2:27:19 England lost on penalties at home, and Germany advanced to the final.

2:27:25 A few days later, we watched the final as well.

2:27:29 We were at someone's place.

2:27:30 We didn't have a TV at the time, or maybe our channel wasn't showing the match.

2:27:33 I don't remember.

2:27:34 We watched it at somebody's place.

2:27:36 It was Germany against the Czech Republic.

2:27:39 Germany won that final.

2:27:42 I remember Oliver Bierhoff coming off the bench and scoring.

2:27:44 That whole period is still very vivid in my memory.

2:27:48 After that, I kept watching football whenever I could.

2:27:51 And I remember the 1998 Champions League final.

2:27:54 I watched it with my father.

2:27:57 Again, I don't remember where we watched it, but it was the final, 1 to 0.

2:28:02 Real Madrid won.

2:28:02 I can still remember the players who were on the pitch.

2:28:06 Uh, I was obsessed with football myself.

2:28:10 I'd spend hours, days outside playing with a ball,

2:28:13 sometimes on my own, sometimes with a group.

2:28:17 There was a period when, actually, in the settlement where I lived,

2:28:23 in the village, I was pretty much the only kid who had a football.

2:28:29 So the older guys would come over.

2:28:32 I was maybe nine or ten, and these were boys who were fifteen or sixteen.

2:28:36 They'd say, "Habib, bring the ball out." But I'd

2:28:39 give them a condition for bringing the ball out.

2:28:41 When you're ten years old,

2:28:43 nobody is putting you on a team with fifteen-year-olds, you know.

2:28:45 The age gap is just too big.

2:28:47 So I'd say, "If I bring the ball, I'm playing." They go,

2:28:51 "All right, bring it out," and I'd get to play.

2:28:53 And the kids my own age didn't make the team.

2:28:55 You know how it is when there are a lot of kids around.

2:28:59 Of course, the older boys would take charge.

2:29:02 They decide who's playing.

2:29:03 Normally, when you're ten and they're fifteen,

2:29:05 there was no chance you'd get picked.

2:29:07 But I was very lucky.