WEBVTT

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- The following is a conversation
with Khabib Nurmagomedov,

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one of the greatest fighters
of all time, who retired from the

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UFC undefeated with a perfect twenty-nine
and O record. It was a huge honor for me

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to meet him, to train together,
and to have this deep conversation.

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We had this conversation
entirely in Russian.

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This was my first time
doing so on this podcast.

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

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So if you're hearing me in English,
you're actually listening to the

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English dub. On YouTube,
you can switch between language audio

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tracks by clicking the settings
gear icon, then clicking

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audio track, and then selecting
the language you prefer.

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For the original Russian
version, select Russian. And

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for the English dub, select English.
Subtitles are also available in both

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languages.

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The translation and dubbing
are a collaborative effort of

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translators, real human beings,
including myself and AI.

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Thanks to the incredible team
at ElevenLabs for their help.

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

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

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I love you all. This is the Lex
Fridman Podcast. And now, dear friends,

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here's Khabib Nurmagomedov. Let's try
in Russian if we can, like you suggested.

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- I can help you out if you need.

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- Yeah, thanks, brother. I kind
of feel it in my heart and soul, but

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sometimes I can't find the right words.

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- I know, brother. We got this.

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- Great. Let's start from the beginning.
So that gym back in Dagestan where you

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trained is legendary
for its spartan conditions.

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There was just one shower
for seventy people, only cold

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water. And yet,
this humble little gym managed

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

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Can you try to explain or maybe reflect on

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what factors in that gym, those
training sessions, that life in

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Dagestan created so many champions?

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- Sure. So we're talking about the gym,
the one located in Makhachkala.

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And Makhachkala, for the people
who don't know, it's the capital of

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Dagestan. This was back around
the years from two thousand to two

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thousand and ten, and even
later on. In twenty nineteen,

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we opened up a big gym,
a major facility that is still

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functioning to this day.
But before twenty nineteen,

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we all actually trained in that
gym where there was practically

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nothing. It was just a school
gym with nothing but mats, a

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

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And if we go even further back,
before two thousand, before we moved to

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Makhachkala, we lived in a village.

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In the village, we had a gym
right inside our house. My father,

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he built a gym at home, and he was
training all the local village kids right

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there.

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And there were times back when I
was a child, let's say when I was

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maybe six or seven years old, I would
occasionally wake up to the sound of,

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people training, doing their
drills right there in the gym.

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You know, like with judo or freestyle
when they're drilling, one guy throwing

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another. Those are my first
conscious memories. I was maybe

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five, six, seven years old
at that time. So my father

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set up this gym in the village
and trained local kids, including

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me, my older brother, and all
our close and distant relatives,

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anyone who wanted to come.
A lot of kids came to him.

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- So you would wake up
and there are these sounds.

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- Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You hear
the hitting, the throwing over and

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over. And my father's voice,
how he's shouting, giving

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instructions, pushing someone,
coaching, teaching. I

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lived with those sounds.
But that was in the village. And later

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when we moved to Makhachkala,

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well, you couldn't say the gym
there was wow either. There were

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only mats. And of course,
the most valuable thing an athlete

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can have, a coach, my father.
So he trained us there.

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And to be honest, let's say, until I

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became a champion and had
big success, we never had a

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good big gym where we could, you know,

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

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

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- So your life story began
in the mountains of Dagestan in

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Sildi, then Kirovaul,
and then Makhachkala.

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And in all these situations,
there are very interesting stories. But

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one of the things I heard you say is that
the best results are born out of the worst

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conditions. What can you say about that?

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Philosophically, is it correct to say
that comfort is kind of the enemy for

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champions?

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- It depends on the sport. For example,
let's say in football, you have to

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have conditions. You can't really
play if there is practically no

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field. Of course, you can play
in the dirt, and it happens sometimes. You

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can start there. But when you are ten
or twelve years old, you already have to

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be at a certain level. You must have
conditions. But if we look at our sport,

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then what is the most
important thing? The coach.

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You also need sparring partners who will

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push you in the gym, as they
say, right? And you need the

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mats. Our sport is not expensive.
You just buy your

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wrestling shoes, singlets,
shorts, a T-shirt. And

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if there's a mat, you wrestle,
you become a champion, you fight.

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But when you live too well,
let's say, you know, you're never

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in need. For example,
you were born into a wealthy family

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and you already have everything.

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Would that same wealthy father,
would he force you to do such a brutal

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sport? A sport where you come
home every day with injuries

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where you come home with an exhausted
body, you come home with bruises.

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Would he really do that? That's
the question. And the kid himself, who

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lives a life of luxury,
would he even want to do this?

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When we look at it statistically,
the answer is no. This

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is where you need that hunger. You have
to be in a position where you are truly

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in need.

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- And it's interesting that there's
a psychological side to this as

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well, that you need a tough
situation to create champions.

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But what's really interesting is how
Dagestan has produced so many wrestling

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champions. You mentioned football.
Let's look at other

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countries. Why has Brazil produced
so many great football players?

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Why does Argentina have so many
football players? Of course, you have

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Germany, France, and all that.

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- European, yeah.

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

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- Yes. Well, in Brazil, their strength
is in their numbers. How many people do

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they have? The population is huge,
more than two hundred million.

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And people really love it there.
It's a huge tradition. Because, you

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know, without a real love for this sport,
you can never achieve any

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success. You truly have to love
what you are doing. So they have the

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tradition and they have the love for it,
and that is why they play for all the

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top clubs. Well, I think
they just win by numbers.

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- Yeah, that's a powerful aspect
of their culture. How much people,

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how much the whole nation loves to play
football. And if you add to that a

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system that creates strong teams, that's
how you can produce so many football

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legends.

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- Yes. Take Dagestan, for example.
We love football. I just know how much

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people in Dagestan love football. Yes, we
have wrestlers, fighters. There are many

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of us. But for football players, there
is no ecosystem like that. Not so well

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organized where a kid can,
for example, play at school, then go to

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some academy, then get noticed there,
and then get picked up by a club. We don't

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have that system. It's just
kids running on the streets,

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playing on the streets,
following football.

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Let's say playing on PlayStation.

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There is no system. There is no
selection process where kids can go and

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show themselves, so they can be
noticed and get signed. I think

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Brazil and other countries,
and of course Europe, they have it.

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So yeah, we have big problems
with football. However, in our sports

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where you can, where you can wrestle,
where you can fight, in that sense, we

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have a system. For example, the gyms,
you know, in Makhachkala, let's say

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for combat sports.
I'm not even counting like freestyle

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wrestling or other styles.
There may be forty or fifty gyms for

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combat sports, and all are full.
If you win in Dagestan, you move on to

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the North Caucasus level, then to the
Russian nationals. If you're champion

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of Russia, you go to the Worlds.
In amateurs, they notice you and

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you make a name for yourself.
There is a certain ladder here.

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But in many other sports here
in Dagestan, we don't have such a

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well-structured ladder
for people to climb.

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- Can we look at this
philosophically again? I mean,

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you've seen so many wrestlers, fighters.
Why exactly were these gyms creating so

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many champions? I'm just
honestly curious because it's rare

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in any sport, one gym or a small number
of gyms creating so many champions.

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- Well, first important factor is the
competition level is incredibly high.

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

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

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

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

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

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But there are coaches in Dagestan
that not many people know

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about. They are known
locally, but they are

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very good, and actually they
have the knowledge, they have the

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approach, they have the philosophy.

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They could also be at the same level
as my father was. I believe there

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are really quite a few of them.
In terms of the coaching, I think

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Dagestan was extremely lucky.
It probably goes back to the

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nineteen fifties when wrestling
really took off here, starting

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with Ali Aliyev, our legendary
wrestler, a five-time world champion

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who went to the Olympics three times.
That's where it started, with his

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generation. There was Zagalav
Abdulbekov, Ali Aliyev.

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Those are the well-known names. I mean,
those guys are famous, but there were

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so many other less known
wrestlers who later on, after they

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retired, they all became great coaches
themselves. And these coaches, they

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raised a very large number
of guys who are really good at

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wrestling. And then some
of those coaches, they kind of

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switched over to fighting, let's say to

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grappling, to MMA, and they
started coaching in combat Sambo

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as well. And it just kept going like
that, you know. It was moving forward

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step by step. And so we have
a huge number of really great

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coaches. I believe this is one
of the single most important keys

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to the success of Dagestani wrestlers and
fighters, the coaching staff of Dagestan.

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- Is it more about technique
or is it really just about serious,

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incredibly hard work?

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- Well, you have to look
at the traditions,

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because generally it's just the way it is

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in Dagestan. Everyone wrestles.
Everyone fights. It's part of

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our culture. You know yourself,
fighting is like fifty percent wrestling.

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

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

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They must be able to stand
up for themselves, for their

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family. It's something
that has traditionally always

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been in every single one of our clans,
every family, every village.

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It's just in our blood.

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- I mean, it's worth pointing out,
and you've actually written about this,

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that this isn't just a recent thing.
It's been going on for hundreds of years.

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- Yes, that's right.
These lands, Dagestan specifically,

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have seen powerful armies sweep
through time and time again.

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

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- Refusing to back down, refusing to give
up their land or lose their identity.

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- Their homes, their villages,
yeah, their families, and land.

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If we look back a thousand years
in history, maybe fifteen hundred years,

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there was the Khazar Khaganate,
the Arabic Caliphate, then

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the Iranian Empire,
or the Persian Empire, I should say.

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Then the Russian Empire,
Timur passed through

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there, the Mongols.
And if we look at the geographical

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location of Dagestan,
for those who don't know, the

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Caucasus range runs across
the whole region like a wall, and

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then it slopes down right
where the Caspian lowlands are.

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So you've got the sea on the right,
the mountains on the left, and the

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Caspian lowlands right here. And there was
a city there that's still standing today.

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

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Derbent. It used to be called Babul Abwab.

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It means the gate of gates.
Very major trade routes

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went through there. Very large
armies passed through, and it

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was bound to leave a mark on the people.

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we have so many languages,
more than thirty different languages, and

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people just don't understand each other.

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Take Islam and me.
We have different languages,

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come from different backgrounds.

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Islam is Lak, and I'm Avar.
When we talk, it's not like

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it's a dialect. We don't
understand each other at all.

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

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he actually picked up
some Avar over time. But

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anyway, the deep history
of the region, it all left

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its mark. It created many
different languages and traditions.

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Basically, of course, Islam
is our primary religion, but

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Dagestan has actually
absorbed a lot of cultures and

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faiths. Even our food culture,
it is incredibly rich.

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We have European and Asian and

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Caucasian, our own unique cuisine. So on
the people, on the people themselves, the

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last fifteen hundred years
of history have left a huge

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mark. If you're into history
and you start reading about

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Dagestan, I think you'll get
completely immersed and be amazed

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by what a unique place it is.

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So all of this left a huge mark.
Look at the terrain. It's a coastal plain,

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and then the mountains rise up.
For instance, take someone like

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Timur. When he passed through with a
huge army, he stayed in the Dagestan

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lowlands but never went up
into the mountains. Why? Because

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you've got hundreds of thousands
of troops, soldiers traveling with

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horses and supplies.
If they had started going up into

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the mountains where it's
cold and there are no roads,

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it would have been too tough for them.
So the highlanders somehow

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managed to stay independent.
But the lowlands, the Caspian lowlands of

00:15:52.700 --> 00:15:56.097
Dagestan, they kept
changing hands. Massive

00:15:56.180 --> 00:16:00.460
empires would roll in, and all
of that left a mark on the people.

00:16:01.920 --> 00:16:05.860
Gate of the gates, Babul Abwab.
Historians wrote about it, say,

00:16:06.120 --> 00:16:09.977
a thousand or fifteen hundred
years ago, great historians

00:16:10.060 --> 00:16:13.357
from various countries.
People have written so much about

00:16:13.440 --> 00:16:17.177
Dagestan. It went by different
names back then, but

00:16:17.260 --> 00:16:20.280
they wrote a ton about this exact region.

00:16:21.580 --> 00:16:24.420
Many people,
many empires invaded our land.

00:16:25.160 --> 00:16:28.458
- So do you feel that inside you,
in your blood, your heart,

00:16:28.541 --> 00:16:29.950
like all of this history?

00:16:30.960 --> 00:16:34.657
- Well, in the past, it's not like
I really felt it. I knew Dagestan's

00:16:34.740 --> 00:16:38.557
history, but maybe with time,
you start to see it in a whole new

00:16:38.640 --> 00:16:44.760
light. Every year, you change a bit
on a mental and psychological level.

00:16:46.480 --> 00:16:51.720
Now I understand.
I really do. You cannot just

00:16:52.780 --> 00:16:56.077
be born physically
and mentally strong. Your

00:16:56.160 --> 00:17:00.037
environment shapes you no matter
what, where you grew up, how you

00:17:00.120 --> 00:17:04.057
grew up, the conditions,
and who you had around you. And after

00:17:04.140 --> 00:17:06.930
all, genetics are also
a part of who you are.

00:17:07.640 --> 00:17:11.557
So when you add all this up,
yeah, I just feel like all of this

00:17:11.640 --> 00:17:13.150
has come together inside me.

00:17:14.560 --> 00:17:18.237
- It's interesting because
in sports, we know many of the

00:17:18.320 --> 00:17:20.740
names of the great fighters and wrestlers.

00:17:22.260 --> 00:17:25.900
Yet when it comes to war,
there are so many people who fought,

00:17:26.440 --> 00:17:33.440
heroes, truly great warriors. Some we
know by name, but most of them we'll never

00:17:33.920 --> 00:17:35.860
actually know and- - We'll never know.

00:17:36.780 --> 00:17:38.320
- You write about Imam Shamil,

00:17:39.220 --> 00:17:43.957
that he's an important figure
for this region and a hero as well.

00:17:44.040 --> 00:17:49.800
- Well, Imam Shamil, he was known
for resisting an empire as huge as Russia.

00:17:51.260 --> 00:17:55.157
Dagestan is so small, and he
had so few people with him. How

00:17:55.240 --> 00:17:58.714
did he get famous? He got famous
because he held out for a very long time.

00:17:58.797 --> 00:18:03.097
He didn't just resist for a
couple of years. He was like a

00:18:03.180 --> 00:18:06.937
regular fighter, let's say,
a soldier for ten years, and

00:18:07.020 --> 00:18:12.020
then when he became the leader,
he went on for another twenty-five years.

00:18:13.010 --> 00:18:16.750
So, 35 years of his conscious
life he spent fighting

00:18:17.010 --> 00:18:20.847
not just some random empire,
but what was then, if not

00:18:20.930 --> 00:18:25.810
the most powerful, definitely one
of the strongest empires of that era.

00:18:27.710 --> 00:18:29.890
And that is what made him famous.

00:18:30.850 --> 00:18:34.767
And so there are villages
in Dagestan that deeply honor the

00:18:34.850 --> 00:18:38.550
memory of particular warriors
who came from their villages,

00:18:39.470 --> 00:18:46.470
from their clan, from their ethnic group.
But in, well world history, they're

00:18:47.190 --> 00:18:52.627
barely known. Like, take Shamil.
He's a leader, right? So everybody knows

00:18:52.710 --> 00:18:56.567
him. But there are plenty of heroes
who've been forgotten. But yeah, their

00:18:56.650 --> 00:18:57.710
own people remember.

00:18:58.450 --> 00:19:02.227
- Villages hold on to history.
Plus, we have to admit

00:19:02.310 --> 00:19:06.227
that conditions in the mountains are
incredibly harsh. That's part of it

00:19:06.310 --> 00:19:09.230
too. Just surviving up
there is a real struggle.

00:19:10.250 --> 00:19:13.887
- See, back then, people in the mountains
worked all through the summer just to

00:19:13.970 --> 00:19:17.520
survive the winter, because
winters are harsh, with heavy snow,

00:19:17.810 --> 00:19:23.170
completely cutting off villages. People
just stay inside and try to outlast it.

00:19:24.210 --> 00:19:28.150
And in the summer, they work.
Terrace farming was a huge thing for us.

00:19:29.150 --> 00:19:33.010
Our terraces are among the most,
you could say, famous and

00:19:33.190 --> 00:19:37.047
ancient in the world.
They're known as the Chokh terraces. Now,

00:19:37.130 --> 00:19:40.670
those are the famous ones.
But every village had terraces.

00:19:41.090 --> 00:19:44.747
There's a place out there called
Marghit, right across from our

00:19:44.830 --> 00:19:48.707
village. People worked over there,
but here, in the village, is

00:19:48.790 --> 00:19:52.747
where they lived. I mean, you'd think,
why didn't they just build a village

00:19:52.830 --> 00:19:56.410
right there, in the place where
we grow all our food? Because

00:19:56.610 --> 00:20:00.487
enemies could easily ride
in on horseback. An army could

00:20:00.570 --> 00:20:04.167
easily get to you there, so they'd
build a village in rugged terrain-

00:20:04.250 --> 00:20:05.750
... somewhere tough to invade.

00:20:07.090 --> 00:20:11.047
For instance, our village is Sildi.
It's from the word si, which is like

00:20:11.130 --> 00:20:13.270
a castle or a fortress or a tower.

00:20:14.210 --> 00:20:17.967
They built it that way so an army
couldn't reach them. You'd have to hike

00:20:18.050 --> 00:20:21.367
down one mountain and then
climb up a whole different

00:20:21.450 --> 00:20:25.950
mountain. And right there, they'd
plant things like grain, potatoes,

00:20:26.910 --> 00:20:28.710
basically, you know, all their food.

00:20:29.730 --> 00:20:33.590
See, if we had built over there,
if we lived there and grew our crops

00:20:33.770 --> 00:20:37.487
in the same place, since it's all
terraced land, an army could just walk

00:20:37.570 --> 00:20:41.670
right up, launch raids, and so on.
Back in the day, that's how people lived.

00:20:42.990 --> 00:20:49.530
And so all of this took a toll on people,
physically, psychologically, and mentally.

00:20:50.510 --> 00:20:53.807
And honestly, well,
you just can't be born in these

00:20:53.890 --> 00:20:57.410
conditions, live here,
stay here, and be mentally weak.

00:20:58.590 --> 00:21:01.540
You just have to be tough.
There's no other way to survive.

00:21:02.550 --> 00:21:04.930
- So you just built
a sports complex there.

00:21:05.690 --> 00:21:08.390
Pretty legendary, you know.
Could you talk about that?

00:21:08.650 --> 00:21:12.507
- Yes, that was my father's whole plan.
He really wanted it way up in

00:21:12.590 --> 00:21:16.490
the mountains. First, it's great
for the fighters. Right now,

00:21:16.770 --> 00:21:20.610
I just flew out here to Las Vegas.
We're sitting here, like,

00:21:20.750 --> 00:21:24.490
doing this podcast together,
but I came out here for Umar's fight.

00:21:25.710 --> 00:21:31.050
And I should say, Umar did his main
training there at the new base in Sildi.

00:21:32.050 --> 00:21:35.987
He spent almost a month
at that place. And because it's

00:21:36.070 --> 00:21:43.070
1500 to 1600 meters above sea level,
man, it's tough to train there. And

00:21:44.950 --> 00:21:48.810
And the thing is, when you spend
about three to four weeks there,

00:21:48.950 --> 00:21:52.467
you just have more oxygen
in your blood, you have more

00:21:52.550 --> 00:21:56.190
testosterone, you improve
physically, you know, your

00:21:56.390 --> 00:22:00.287
stamina builds up, and so on. And

00:22:00.370 --> 00:22:06.870
this base was sort of my father's dream.
He started building it back in 2016, 2017.

00:22:08.090 --> 00:22:12.570
Money was tight back then. It was really
hard, but we built it little by little.

00:22:13.570 --> 00:22:17.167
In 2020, my father passed
away, but I kept the

00:22:17.250 --> 00:22:21.330
project going just a little
differently, on a bigger scale.

00:22:22.750 --> 00:22:26.507
Right now, the base is open,
and 100 people can be there at the

00:22:26.590 --> 00:22:29.630
same time, training, eating, sleeping.

00:22:31.190 --> 00:22:34.890
And our guys hold their
training camps up there.

00:22:37.010 --> 00:22:42.950
So this was sort of my father's dream
that I have pretty much brought to life.

00:22:44.170 --> 00:22:47.927
- It's a powerful story. To return
to the place where you were born up in the

00:22:48.010 --> 00:22:53.387
mountains in order to build a sports
complex where champions train.

00:22:53.470 --> 00:22:57.150
Makhachkala Gym is a great place,
but the mountains are special.

00:22:58.030 --> 00:22:59.767
- Mountains are mountains.
- Mountains are mountains.

00:22:59.850 --> 00:23:03.720
- Your home village, no matter what,
on some sort of deeper level,

00:23:04.130 --> 00:23:07.830
somehow gives you that, you know,
like Americans love to say,

00:23:07.990 --> 00:23:11.310
positive energy.
Not everything has to be done for money.

00:23:11.790 --> 00:23:15.530
And you know, you shouldn't
just look for profit in

00:23:15.710 --> 00:23:17.410
everything, let's say financially.

00:23:18.310 --> 00:23:22.087
There are certain things that don't
bring me anything at all except for

00:23:22.170 --> 00:23:26.350
expenses, but I still
do all of it because, um,

00:23:27.670 --> 00:23:30.670
because it brings me a lot
of happiness and meaning.

00:23:31.430 --> 00:23:36.750
First of all, it creates a lot of jobs.
People can work and earn a living.

00:23:37.950 --> 00:23:41.450
Second, it's because my father
really wanted this. Third,

00:23:41.990 --> 00:23:45.610
let's say the guys can
train and improve up there,

00:23:45.770 --> 00:23:50.967
both physically and spiritually.
There are just so many benefits there.

00:23:51.050 --> 00:23:53.542
- I don't know if it's okay
to ask something like this,

00:23:53.626 --> 00:23:54.887
but I would dream of coming

00:23:54.970 --> 00:23:58.850
out there to Dagestan, and not
just to Makhachkala, but to Sildi.

00:23:59.770 --> 00:24:01.220
Is that even possible for me?

00:24:02.790 --> 00:24:05.400
- I think we could film
a really good story out there.

00:24:05.483 --> 00:24:06.933
I'm not sure about a podcast,

00:24:08.350 --> 00:24:11.810
but I'm sure we could shoot
a really nice vlog there.

00:24:13.230 --> 00:24:16.725
- So can you tell me a bit about
the journey from Makhachkala all the way

00:24:16.809 --> 00:24:17.642
to Sildi?

00:24:18.080 --> 00:24:20.017
- Four hours. Well, 3:40.
- Through the mountains?

00:24:20.100 --> 00:24:23.897
- Yeah, 3:30, 3:40 through the mountains.
The road is a real winding

00:24:23.980 --> 00:24:27.667
one, not an easy ride. If it gets to be
too hard for you, we can just take a

00:24:27.750 --> 00:24:33.077
helicopter. It's no problem at all.
Like 40 to 50 minutes from

00:24:33.160 --> 00:24:37.020
Makhachkala to Sildi. Otherwise,
keeping it more down to earth, we go

00:24:37.140 --> 00:24:39.480
by car, so there's absolutely no problem.

00:24:39.880 --> 00:24:42.389
- I could never get used
to a wealthy life. It's just,

00:24:42.472 --> 00:24:44.667
it's not in my blood to be like that.

00:24:44.750 --> 00:24:46.557
- All right, then we'll go by car.

00:24:46.640 --> 00:24:49.340
- Yeah, we could go on horseback,
but a car is better.

00:24:49.600 --> 00:24:52.600
- No, no, by car is better.
On horseback takes way too long.

00:24:52.940 --> 00:24:55.070
- Um, so you mentioned money,

00:24:57.040 --> 00:25:00.477
and we were just talking about comfort
because right now there are so many

00:25:00.560 --> 00:25:03.980
champions. They win so much.
Things are going so

00:25:04.140 --> 00:25:08.007
well. How much harder is it
to stay a champion when the money

00:25:08.090 --> 00:25:11.600
and the fame start coming in,
when all that stuff starts showing up?

00:25:13.560 --> 00:25:17.440
- Well, those are all distracting things.
When you become a champion,

00:25:17.700 --> 00:25:21.560
there's a massive amount of attention
on you. Sometimes it's contracts,

00:25:22.000 --> 00:25:25.850
sometimes you end up having to fly a lot,
you start getting busy with things,

00:25:26.060 --> 00:25:29.837
and little by little you begin to miss
your workouts. You miss one, you

00:25:29.920 --> 00:25:31.280
miss two, you miss three.

00:25:33.140 --> 00:25:37.057
And all of that takes a toll,
and the person who used to train with such

00:25:37.140 --> 00:25:41.077
a drive, with a hunger to be
the best, as soon as they actually

00:25:41.160 --> 00:25:44.960
become the best, they just
don't know what to do next. And

00:25:45.140 --> 00:25:52.140
they live their whole life
just to become, stay on the top.

00:25:54.760 --> 00:25:58.560
As soon as they get there,
what are they supposed to do?

00:25:59.400 --> 00:26:03.297
That's it. They already made it. They've
reached their goal, and there are just so

00:26:03.380 --> 00:26:07.077
many distracting factors:
money, flights, you

00:26:07.160 --> 00:26:10.977
know, meetings, contracts,
video shoots. There

00:26:11.060 --> 00:26:14.797
are just so many distracting
factors. And so if a

00:26:14.880 --> 00:26:17.180
person doesn't know how
to handle all of this,

00:26:18.240 --> 00:26:22.057
then that person comes down from
the top real fast. And I'm saying

00:26:22.140 --> 00:26:26.037
this based on my own experience,
from what I've seen all around me

00:26:26.120 --> 00:26:27.770
with the ones who came before me.

00:26:28.440 --> 00:26:32.240
And back then when I was training
with my father, his students who

00:26:33.380 --> 00:26:37.250
went on to become world champions,
just how they finished their careers and

00:26:37.340 --> 00:26:41.140
so on. And it's what I saw from my

00:26:41.240 --> 00:26:44.760
own observations of other types
of sports, how they came back down,

00:26:45.200 --> 00:26:49.490
as far as I've learned. This is a
very delicate moment. If a person

00:26:50.980 --> 00:26:54.877
climbing all the way to the top,
if they can handle all of that, that

00:26:54.960 --> 00:26:58.657
already shows they have an incredibly
serious mindset. Reaching the

00:26:58.740 --> 00:27:02.537
championship and staying there,
reaching it is one thing, but

00:27:02.620 --> 00:27:06.760
staying a champion, that's totally
different. It's incredibly tough.

00:27:07.260 --> 00:27:11.554
- You're saying that even on a local
level, once you become a champion,

00:27:11.637 --> 00:27:12.500
that's already

00:27:13.920 --> 00:27:16.240
the tough moment because a lot of people

00:27:17.060 --> 00:27:21.000
who start winning, like you
said, they stop fighting,

00:27:21.100 --> 00:27:24.417
they quit doing MMA
and switch over to fitness.

00:27:24.500 --> 00:27:26.960
They find themselves that comfort.

00:27:27.980 --> 00:27:32.120
But holding onto it is hard,
even on a local level.

00:27:32.960 --> 00:27:36.897
Every single time you become more
and more of a champion, you won the

00:27:36.980 --> 00:27:41.090
Sambo championship, you keep winning more
and more, and every time it gets harder.

00:27:42.780 --> 00:27:46.537
- Yes, and it depends on the person's
goals. If you want to become an

00:27:46.620 --> 00:27:50.477
amateur champion just to prove
something to yourself, that's one

00:27:50.560 --> 00:27:54.457
thing. But if you view
amateur sports as a springboard

00:27:54.540 --> 00:27:58.357
to jump right into professional
sports and become a champion among

00:27:58.440 --> 00:28:01.957
professionals, that's a whole
different thing. There are different

00:28:02.040 --> 00:28:05.897
paths. First, you build
an amateur career just to get

00:28:05.980 --> 00:28:09.760
into the pros and go even
further from there. Second,

00:28:10.220 --> 00:28:13.900
after you've made it into the pros,
you become a champion. And

00:28:14.040 --> 00:28:17.700
third, after you become a champion,
you have to stay there.

00:28:18.610 --> 00:28:22.517
Not everyone has what it takes.
It is incredibly tough. If you look at the

00:28:22.600 --> 00:28:26.357
numbers, you can literally count these
champions on one hand. How many of

00:28:26.440 --> 00:28:29.920
them are there? Maybe 15, 20, 30 people?

00:28:30.360 --> 00:28:34.137
Let's say 50 over the last
30 years, and how many have

00:28:34.220 --> 00:28:37.740
tried? For example,
50 achieved it over 30 years,

00:28:38.320 --> 00:28:41.940
over 35 years of MMA combat sports.

00:28:42.320 --> 00:28:46.217
But how many tried? Hundreds of thousands.
And look at that number. Such

00:28:46.300 --> 00:28:48.500
a tiny amount actually
reached the end goal.

00:28:49.920 --> 00:28:53.777
So for you to actually make it
into this tiny list, you really

00:28:53.860 --> 00:28:57.840
have to be like just a truly unique,

00:28:58.840 --> 00:29:02.650
person and a fighter and,
and you know, a student,

00:29:04.020 --> 00:29:07.817
and a person who can
accept guidance from a coach

00:29:07.900 --> 00:29:11.620
who when they are being guided,
discard the cons and

00:29:11.720 --> 00:29:15.460
take only the pros. But there
are people who take criticism

00:29:15.580 --> 00:29:19.357
very hard and very negatively,
and are very sensitive,

00:29:19.440 --> 00:29:22.360
let's say, when they take criticism-

00:29:22.640 --> 00:29:29.577
... from a mentor. So it all has to click,
and some accept criticism at the very

00:29:29.660 --> 00:29:34.370
beginning, but then once they become
champions, it's hard for them to take it.

00:29:34.740 --> 00:29:38.637
It happens differently.
A man sometimes doesn't even know what

00:29:38.720 --> 00:29:42.180
he is capable of.
Sometimes he just can't really

00:29:42.280 --> 00:29:45.937
understand himself until
he achieves success or

00:29:46.020 --> 00:29:49.720
becomes famous, wealthy,
and powerful. That

00:29:49.840 --> 00:29:53.060
is exactly when he
discovers his true qualities.

00:29:54.260 --> 00:29:58.197
When he is limited in something,
in money, in power, in

00:29:58.280 --> 00:30:00.660
everything that success
eventually brings him,

00:30:02.180 --> 00:30:05.480
he doesn't really know
how he's going to act

00:30:07.360 --> 00:30:11.297
in this new role, doesn't know
how he'll behave once he becomes

00:30:11.380 --> 00:30:15.250
big, famous, and a champion.
Nobody knows. Some people

00:30:15.400 --> 00:30:20.020
say and wish, "Oh, if only I'd made it
like that, I would do things this way."

00:30:20.840 --> 00:30:24.800
I think it's better if people
don't throw around such big words

00:30:25.900 --> 00:30:30.200
because you never know how you'll carry
yourself once you actually get there.

00:30:31.420 --> 00:30:36.424
You know, it's such a delicate thing,
getting up there and still remaining

00:30:36.508 --> 00:30:37.341
human.

00:30:39.120 --> 00:30:43.077
- When it comes to you, I see that
everyone here just loves you. Even early

00:30:43.160 --> 00:30:47.100
on in your career, millions
of people loved you. That is also a,

00:30:48.920 --> 00:30:53.100
a tough thing to deal with because
maybe you start believing it.

00:30:53.360 --> 00:30:58.180
And you can lose yourself in all of it.
So is it all in the mind? I mean,

00:30:59.240 --> 00:31:03.360
what actually goes on in
a champion's head? In yours

00:31:04.500 --> 00:31:08.560
when you sat alone thinking
about your life, "Who am I really,

00:31:09.680 --> 00:31:13.100
and what do I do to keep being
a champion or to become one?"

00:31:14.700 --> 00:31:18.297
- Well, first of all, from the very
beginning, if you realize that what you're

00:31:18.380 --> 00:31:22.180
chasing isn't the most important
thing in life, then it gets

00:31:22.320 --> 00:31:25.820
easier for you. And then,
you know, there are some people

00:31:25.980 --> 00:31:32.260
whose, let's say, ultimate goal is to be
successful, powerful, and to make it big.

00:31:33.140 --> 00:31:38.640
At the end of the day, after all, we are
not really such big, important people.

00:31:39.840 --> 00:31:46.840
And, like, I believe it's wrong
to just crown yourself king because,

00:31:49.460 --> 00:31:55.560
uh if we put it, to put it bluntly,
if we're being honest here,

00:31:57.020 --> 00:32:04.020
we can't even control the basic need to go
to the restroom. Maybe to some... Yeah.

00:32:05.780 --> 00:32:09.717
To some people this will probably
seem a bit crude, but we all go

00:32:09.800 --> 00:32:13.420
to the restroom, excuse my language.
If we can't control

00:32:13.580 --> 00:32:16.060
even this, so what can we actually

00:32:16.980 --> 00:32:20.900
control in this life? Look how
many people we know, how many great

00:32:21.120 --> 00:32:24.480
people have left this earth.
It doesn't really matter how, like,

00:32:25.160 --> 00:32:29.077
big, strong, or famous you are,
how wealthy you are, champion or no

00:32:29.160 --> 00:32:32.760
champion. Either way, they put us
all in the exact same grave, you know,

00:32:33.060 --> 00:32:36.940
two meters down or, like,
a meter or a meter and a half.

00:32:37.460 --> 00:32:39.560
Different confessions,
different religions,

00:32:39.643 --> 00:32:41.420
they bury people in different ways.

00:32:42.320 --> 00:32:46.938
So I actually believe that every single
person should have this realization

00:32:47.021 --> 00:32:47.855
that we

00:32:48.640 --> 00:32:52.357
are just not some kind of big, important

00:32:52.440 --> 00:32:55.978
people here who just decide
and get to control everything.

00:32:56.061 --> 00:32:57.560
We don't get to do that.

00:32:59.440 --> 00:33:02.892
In my case, I was raised under
the guidance of my father.

00:33:02.975 --> 00:33:04.340
My father was a coach,

00:33:05.600 --> 00:33:12.427
and my goal was always to become... To
prove to my father that out of everyone,

00:33:12.510 --> 00:33:17.840
even though he trains many other people,
he trains everyone, I mean, I'm also here.

00:33:18.680 --> 00:33:22.660
I can show him. He doesn't have
to look very far. I'm right there,

00:33:23.260 --> 00:33:27.137
and under his guidance,
I can become a champion. I

00:33:27.220 --> 00:33:32.130
looked up to him and followed his example,
trained hard, and it was like, you know,

00:33:33.980 --> 00:33:37.837
a kind of a challenge
to prove to him that, "Look, I

00:33:37.920 --> 00:33:41.760
am right here, Father,
and everything you teach, I will take it

00:33:41.860 --> 00:33:45.740
all in zealously, worthily.
I'll follow your program,

00:33:45.860 --> 00:33:49.437
do it right, and I will become
a champion." And that was

00:33:49.520 --> 00:33:53.487
exactly the kind of goal I had,
to prove it first and foremost

00:33:53.570 --> 00:33:57.477
to my father and secondly
to the entire world that I can

00:33:57.560 --> 00:34:01.380
become the best wrestler
or fighter. But I never

00:34:02.520 --> 00:34:06.297
thought of being crowned
king after I became a

00:34:06.380 --> 00:34:10.280
champion. I was never going
to walk around like, "Look how cool

00:34:10.400 --> 00:34:14.037
I am." That was never in my head,
and I'm really glad

00:34:14.120 --> 00:34:18.010
that the Almighty protected me
from all of that because many

00:34:18.100 --> 00:34:21.240
people end up in a bad
place if they act like that.

00:34:22.930 --> 00:34:26.030
- This is a profound wisdom,
not thinking about being crowned.

00:34:26.860 --> 00:34:30.557
But even if you don't, a fire should
burn within you, driving you to

00:34:30.640 --> 00:34:34.377
become a champion, right?
As you said, hundreds of thousands,

00:34:34.460 --> 00:34:37.797
millions of people want to be
a champion, but only one can be.

00:34:37.880 --> 00:34:41.637
- Yeah, but that is actually
about you confronting your

00:34:41.720 --> 00:34:45.680
opponent. You've got to put
a barrier inside your mind

00:34:46.040 --> 00:34:49.997
where on one side you're
a humble person, but on the

00:34:50.080 --> 00:34:53.920
other side you're different
because you have a goal, your goal.

00:34:54.440 --> 00:34:58.220
Of course, you should still follow
a code of honor. You should be a man,

00:34:58.400 --> 00:35:03.380
a righteous man, and know what you can
and cannot do. You should always do that.

00:35:04.280 --> 00:35:09.800
But in the end, your opponent is the
person who wants to stop your dream.

00:35:10.140 --> 00:35:13.540
So here the boundaries
expand just a little bit.

00:35:14.040 --> 00:35:17.840
Right here, you're already not playing
humble. Right here, you just step out

00:35:18.080 --> 00:35:25.080
and you want to clear your opponent out
of your way, and that's it, because your

00:35:25.520 --> 00:35:28.660
goal is to be the best in the
world and they are blocking you.

00:35:29.180 --> 00:35:34.920
Excuse me, but in this situation,
there's no way you can act all humble.

00:35:35.820 --> 00:35:39.870
- But when you were training in the gym,
what was it that gave you this strength?

00:35:39.980 --> 00:35:42.920
A hatred of losing or a love for winning?

00:35:45.160 --> 00:35:49.100
- I think it was the hatred
of losing. Yes, definitely.

00:35:49.720 --> 00:35:53.637
I mean, you know, of course you
want to win, but for me there

00:35:53.720 --> 00:35:59.700
was always this driver like, "No way.
I am not losing," you know.

00:36:00.540 --> 00:36:04.357
When they would give me a fight, I
always tell this to my guys, whenever they

00:36:04.440 --> 00:36:09.180
would give me a fight on a professional
level, 100 days before it

00:36:10.900 --> 00:36:14.830
I was... How do you say it? Addiction.

00:36:16.040 --> 00:36:19.917
I was fixated like when people
have this addiction. But for me it

00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:23.720
was commitment, that I absolutely
had to prepare perfectly for the

00:36:23.840 --> 00:36:27.550
fight. I couldn't miss any training
sessions. I would literally have,

00:36:27.990 --> 00:36:31.910
like, this panic. Like,
for example, I'd fly somewhere and

00:36:32.030 --> 00:36:35.930
I have, let's say, eighty-five
days left until the fight.

00:36:36.290 --> 00:36:39.827
Like, I knew that I had to fly.
For example, if I was flying to

00:36:39.910 --> 00:36:43.270
Moscow, I would always
pick a ticket so I could

00:36:43.370 --> 00:36:47.040
absolutely do my morning
training session first. Then I'd

00:36:47.250 --> 00:36:50.847
take off around lunchtime.
And once I arrived in Moscow, for

00:36:50.930 --> 00:36:54.940
whatever reason, I had to fit it
all around my training schedule.

00:36:56.510 --> 00:37:00.427
Either I had to meet up before my training
sessions or I had to meet up after my

00:37:00.510 --> 00:37:04.247
training sessions. And I simply could
not miss that evening training session

00:37:04.330 --> 00:37:08.067
because I had to train during
the day from four to five

00:37:08.150 --> 00:37:11.770
hours, two in the morning and two
to two and a half in the evening.

00:37:12.370 --> 00:37:16.127
And I needed to I would
prepare myself that way. Looking

00:37:16.210 --> 00:37:20.170
at who was in Moscow right then,
wondering who I could, like

00:37:20.550 --> 00:37:24.327
pull into a training session there.
Well, they also had to-- the person had to

00:37:24.410 --> 00:37:27.360
match my level as well. Not just
like I showed up there, you know,

00:37:27.443 --> 00:37:29.743
played around with him.
I needed a fight back.

00:37:31.250 --> 00:37:35.087
I would arrange in advance who was gonna
come. Maybe some sparring, maybe I'd do

00:37:35.170 --> 00:37:38.830
wrestling, maybe I'd hit the weights,
maybe a striking workout.

00:37:40.370 --> 00:37:43.887
So I had this, let's say
I always had this tough and

00:37:43.970 --> 00:37:49.970
scientific approach to it. So I believe
that more than anything, I didn't want to

00:37:51.190 --> 00:37:54.907
lose rather than I wanted to win,
you know? Of course, winning is

00:37:54.990 --> 00:37:58.640
also a huge pleasure, but more than
anything, I just didn't want to lose.

00:37:59.270 --> 00:38:03.120
- So in all those hard training sessions,
you were thinking about not losing.

00:38:03.290 --> 00:38:06.367
That's the fuel. - The fuel.
- Four to five hours every single day.

00:38:06.450 --> 00:38:10.970
- Every day. - There is a story
that I heard. Sadulaev,

00:38:11.330 --> 00:38:15.050
the legendary wrestler,
told a story that he went to a hotel,

00:38:15.650 --> 00:38:19.230
I think it was in Moscow,
to train in the gym, and he was the

00:38:19.330 --> 00:38:24.000
only-- It was during the night, I don't
know. He was the only one who was there.

00:38:24.950 --> 00:38:30.047
And you came down-... And you actually
trained together. And he said he, he

00:38:30.130 --> 00:38:33.127
said a lot of great things about you.
He said that you gave him some

00:38:33.210 --> 00:38:40.210
really deep wisdom, which helped him to
win the gold medal, at the Olympic Games.

00:38:42.210 --> 00:38:44.571
I'm curious, could you tell
us now what you told him?

00:38:44.654 --> 00:38:46.504
What kind of wisdom did you give him?

00:38:47.770 --> 00:38:50.947
- I can't remember exactly,
but we had really great conversations.

00:38:51.030 --> 00:38:54.747
- It's a great story that the two of you,
like two legends like that, just

00:38:54.830 --> 00:38:59.030
met completely by chance. - Well, look,
he's a two-time Olympic champion, right?

00:38:59.510 --> 00:39:00.343
- Right.

00:39:00.470 --> 00:39:04.130
- I think he doesn't skip his training
either. He never missed one back

00:39:04.230 --> 00:39:08.110
then. I believe that we both
ended up there because we both,

00:39:08.470 --> 00:39:12.267
you know, hate to lose,
and we both really want to

00:39:12.350 --> 00:39:16.130
win. And, you know,
recently I came across this idea.

00:39:17.830 --> 00:39:21.687
There are athletes who simply want
to win, and then there are some for

00:39:21.770 --> 00:39:25.450
whom victory isn't enough.
They want domination.

00:39:25.770 --> 00:39:29.740
I believe that he is one of those as well.
They want domination. And for

00:39:29.830 --> 00:39:33.190
that, what does a person have to do?
They have to train.

00:39:34.570 --> 00:39:37.070
They have to grind morning and night. And

00:39:38.770 --> 00:39:42.587
there was this thing with us.
After the morning, my father never

00:39:42.670 --> 00:39:46.450
let us sleep. When I say
the morning, I mean after Fajr,

00:39:46.690 --> 00:39:50.630
the dawn prayer. He just wouldn't
sleep himself, so we couldn't either.

00:39:51.250 --> 00:39:54.670
So every morning, six, seven,
we'd be out doing our warm-up.

00:39:55.870 --> 00:39:59.767
Some people might call it a warm-up,
but when you show up at the stadium in the

00:39:59.850 --> 00:40:03.747
morning, you run five kilometers,
you do sprints, you work with

00:40:03.830 --> 00:40:07.550
resistance bands, you work
on the pull-up bar, you do push-ups,

00:40:07.930 --> 00:40:14.930
dips, jumps, you know the bands then
work with a partner, drilling and so on.

00:40:15.750 --> 00:40:19.467
That's about two hours of work.
You drop two, two and a half kilos

00:40:19.550 --> 00:40:23.390
there. Not really a warm-up,
but Father always called it that, right?

00:40:23.890 --> 00:40:27.727
That was a full morning
training at seven AM. Then I came

00:40:27.810 --> 00:40:30.930
home to rest, and at four
o'clock, we'd head to the gym.

00:40:32.010 --> 00:40:35.790
The training would start
at five o'clock and end at seven.

00:40:36.410 --> 00:40:40.070
By eight, I'd be home,
and by eleven, I'd rest up.

00:40:41.070 --> 00:40:44.090
And yet I kept thinking
that something was missing.

00:40:45.590 --> 00:40:49.387
Like, I know that I have a start,
a competition coming up in

00:40:49.470 --> 00:40:53.327
like forty or thirty days, and I would
wake up and I'd be like, "Let me go

00:40:53.410 --> 00:40:57.267
to the sea. I'm gonna go down to the sea,
do some running, some sprints on

00:40:57.350 --> 00:41:01.267
the sand, work out, and so on."
And so many times, I ended

00:41:01.350 --> 00:41:03.850
up going out for a third
training session as well.

00:41:05.130 --> 00:41:08.757
Sometimes Father would say, "Rest.
In the morning, we're gonna have a heavy

00:41:08.840 --> 00:41:12.567
workload." But sometimes I wouldn't
tell Father. I'd just go out at

00:41:12.650 --> 00:41:16.547
night, head out, and train.
At night when everyone's asleep, when

00:41:16.630 --> 00:41:20.547
nobody's around, I'd grab one of my
close friends, give them a call, have

00:41:20.630 --> 00:41:24.447
them pick me up, then hop in the car
and head to the sea. I'd train

00:41:24.530 --> 00:41:27.930
for an hour or an hour and a half,
come back, and crash.

00:41:28.310 --> 00:41:31.276
Next morning, I'd get up
and start all over again.

00:41:31.359 --> 00:41:33.250
And just this routine, nonstop.

00:41:34.130 --> 00:41:37.807
And when I see guys, you know,
when they do just one training session or

00:41:37.890 --> 00:41:41.627
like they say, "On Wednesday,
we have a morning training, then an

00:41:41.710 --> 00:41:42.860
evening sauna session."

00:41:43.950 --> 00:41:47.707
What do you mean? You have
to fight in fifty days. You have a

00:41:47.790 --> 00:41:51.340
huge fight ahead and you want to take
a rest in the middle of the week?

00:41:52.410 --> 00:41:53.470
Well, rest on Sunday.

00:41:54.610 --> 00:41:57.333
On Saturday, do a morning training,
hit the sauna in the evening,

00:41:57.417 --> 00:42:00.767
take a complete rest on Sunday,
and start all over again on Monday.

00:42:02.090 --> 00:42:06.007
That was just my approach. Everyone
does it differently. I don't know.

00:42:06.090 --> 00:42:10.810
I just think it has to be in your head.
You've got to want it incredibly badly.

00:42:12.330 --> 00:42:15.096
- So you believe that to be a champion,
you have to train like that,

00:42:15.179 --> 00:42:16.529
you have to be that serious

00:42:17.070 --> 00:42:18.420
for the majority of people?

00:42:18.590 --> 00:42:24.670
- Let's say I believe that to be
at the top, the top tier, right?

00:42:25.530 --> 00:42:27.350
One of the best in the world

00:42:29.000 --> 00:42:32.760
A person has to always be,
you know, a little bit, let's say

00:42:32.860 --> 00:42:36.117
just a little bit crazy,
but in a good sense of the

00:42:36.200 --> 00:42:40.137
word. You have to be addicted
to it and to want this incredibly

00:42:40.220 --> 00:42:43.940
bad. You have to take a fanatical
approach to the training process.

00:42:45.580 --> 00:42:49.057
Just showing up and working
out, that's what hundreds of

00:42:49.140 --> 00:42:53.000
thousands of guys are doing
around the world. To stand out from

00:42:53.120 --> 00:42:56.957
that, from this crowd,
let's say, who have the exact

00:42:57.040 --> 00:43:00.927
same goals as you do,
to stand out from that, you have

00:43:01.010 --> 00:43:03.797
to take a fanatical approach to it.

00:43:03.880 --> 00:43:07.237
- Well, look,
I'm training with John Danaher.

00:43:07.320 --> 00:43:10.360
And they train like that too.
They train three times a day.

00:43:10.760 --> 00:43:13.060
And it actually feels right
this way. I mean, of course,

00:43:13.143 --> 00:43:14.643
this is how you have to train.

00:43:15.380 --> 00:43:18.277
- 'Cause of that, John has one
of the best- - Yeah, he makes champions

00:43:18.360 --> 00:43:21.557
-... students in the world, and after all,
they don't just take some random place.

00:43:21.640 --> 00:43:23.840
I mean, they're not
somewhere in the middle.

00:43:24.640 --> 00:43:29.760
They're at the top, and look
at their whole approach. Some people...

00:43:31.980 --> 00:43:35.649
Look, a person with that kind of approach
just can't be somewhere in the middle.

00:43:35.732 --> 00:43:41.337
It's impossible. If you have a fanatical
attitude, the right attitude toward

00:43:41.420 --> 00:43:46.060
the training process, on top of that,
you have to be fanatical about it.

00:43:47.520 --> 00:43:49.800
You love what you do, and in the end,

00:43:51.200 --> 00:43:55.120
there will be results. Well, just look
at John and look where his guys are.

00:43:55.900 --> 00:44:00.560
He creates champions. He finds a champion
in everyone, across every category, right?

00:44:01.840 --> 00:44:05.617
- He creates champions,
not just one or two,

00:44:05.700 --> 00:44:10.960
but all of them. He finds a champion
in everyone, across every category.

00:44:11.400 --> 00:44:15.000
- Look, the people who come to him,
he has a system, let's say, right?

00:44:15.820 --> 00:44:19.360
Under this roof, under his
roof, there is a system.

00:44:19.680 --> 00:44:23.280
People come here, and they
become champions in this system.

00:44:24.040 --> 00:44:26.933
So there are people
there who are champions.

00:44:27.017 --> 00:44:29.520
These are specific established names.

00:44:30.520 --> 00:44:33.480
And there are other
people who came and left.

00:44:34.700 --> 00:44:39.780
They entered that black room, so to say,
an uncomfortable place. They went in,

00:44:40.740 --> 00:44:44.517
stood for a year, a year
and a half or two, and left. Nobody

00:44:44.600 --> 00:44:48.140
talks about them. These are
the people who came in, broke mentally,

00:44:48.540 --> 00:44:52.400
and left, and there aren't just
a few of them. There are a lot.

00:44:52.800 --> 00:44:56.537
Usually, most people give up.
There are many who give up, but

00:44:56.620 --> 00:45:00.140
then there are the ones who come
in and stay there for a long time.

00:45:00.900 --> 00:45:07.300
Long, long time. And after some time, they
achieve success. They become the best.

00:45:08.540 --> 00:45:12.477
They prove to themselves that once
they enter the system, they could stay

00:45:12.560 --> 00:45:16.060
there for a long time,
endure, and become the best.

00:45:16.920 --> 00:45:19.740
They prove that they are
already capable of many things.

00:45:21.160 --> 00:45:24.900
They can be trusted to supervise
big, important projects.

00:45:26.300 --> 00:45:32.700
I would even say, for example, 2,000 years
ago, they could easily rule entire cities.

00:45:34.320 --> 00:45:38.207
So a person who has gone through
it physically, who has lived

00:45:38.290 --> 00:45:42.410
through it, who has faced
challenges, passed the tests,

00:45:42.493 --> 00:45:44.480
they are capable of a lot,

00:45:45.300 --> 00:45:48.977
highly capable. You don't just walk
into martial arts and become the

00:45:49.060 --> 00:45:52.080
best. It's very difficult. It means that

00:45:52.900 --> 00:45:56.717
you go through pain,
you make sacrifices, you give

00:45:56.800 --> 00:46:00.440
your time, you face setbacks
and failures in training.

00:46:01.030 --> 00:46:04.960
The mental strength and capacity
mean a lot there. And

00:46:05.100 --> 00:46:08.697
when I talk about his system,
look, I mean those schools that

00:46:08.780 --> 00:46:12.277
became the best, let's
say, in football or in

00:46:12.360 --> 00:46:16.320
freestyle wrestling or,
let's say, in MMA, in grappling,

00:46:16.480 --> 00:46:20.337
or in judo. It's really
hard to enter one of the best

00:46:20.420 --> 00:46:23.700
schools in the world,
to stay when they are breaking you,

00:46:24.000 --> 00:46:27.620
throwing you, choking you,
to improve as a person

00:46:27.860 --> 00:46:31.777
and as an athlete,
and to become a champion. It takes

00:46:31.860 --> 00:46:38.100
at least 12 years, 10 to 12 years,
maybe 15. For some, it took longer.

00:46:39.040 --> 00:46:42.817
And to get through the grind
for these 15 years and

00:46:42.900 --> 00:46:46.400
then to break through and become
the best is worth a lot.

00:46:47.600 --> 00:46:52.900
- Have you had those tough moments where
you're almost broken psychologically?

00:46:53.960 --> 00:46:57.240
You know, just sitting there,
finding it hard to breathe,

00:46:57.960 --> 00:47:02.190
and everything is going wrong,
lost in some situations.

00:47:03.560 --> 00:47:06.510
And when you were young,
was there ever a moment like that?

00:47:08.060 --> 00:47:10.880
'Cause the guys from Dagestan on the team,

00:47:11.940 --> 00:47:16.660
really great guys, by the way, all say
they've never seen you broken in training,

00:47:18.080 --> 00:47:22.400
not even losing really. But when
you were young, did it ever happen?

00:47:23.380 --> 00:47:27.257
- Look, I've been in this
grind since I was a kid.

00:47:27.340 --> 00:47:31.177
Wherever my father coached,
there were always... Let's take the

00:47:31.260 --> 00:47:35.057
year 2004, for example.
My father put together

00:47:35.140 --> 00:47:39.007
the Dagestan national team
for combat Sambo and in mixed martial

00:47:39.090 --> 00:47:42.817
arts, which was called
no-holds-barred fighting. There were

00:47:42.900 --> 00:47:48.280
training camps, too. I was 15.
It was the winter of 2004,

00:47:49.580 --> 00:47:53.297
and I was the youngest guy there.
The others were, let's

00:47:53.380 --> 00:47:57.157
say, between 22 and 30, all active

00:47:57.240 --> 00:48:01.700
world champions. At that time,
I was, like, 14, 15 years old.

00:48:03.520 --> 00:48:08.680
I wrestled with them, grappled, was in
this uncomfortable environment for myself,

00:48:09.740 --> 00:48:13.670
where we always had the rule that
the youngest has to do everything,

00:48:13.880 --> 00:48:19.077
and he is always wrong,
and I had to deal with that.

00:48:19.160 --> 00:48:22.960
Especially in the gym, they throw
you, hit you again and again.

00:48:23.320 --> 00:48:27.100
You have to show up morning
and evening, day after day. This

00:48:27.200 --> 00:48:31.140
place hardens you. They say
How the steel was tempered.

00:48:31.420 --> 00:48:35.400
Steel isn't tempered for nothing.
How many times do you have to

00:48:35.580 --> 00:48:40.580
strike the steel before it becomes a
sword? That doesn't just happen by itself.

00:48:41.180 --> 00:48:42.930
- Did you believe in yourself then?

00:48:43.440 --> 00:48:47.077
- Some of the guys who were at those
camps back then, they're grown men

00:48:47.160 --> 00:48:50.817
now. Even then, they were older than me by

00:48:50.900 --> 00:48:55.660
10, 12, maybe 15 years.
And they always used to say, "Khabib,

00:48:56.460 --> 00:48:59.820
we honestly thought you were
going to become some kind of

00:48:59.960 --> 00:49:03.620
scholar or scientist." Because my father

00:49:03.740 --> 00:49:07.040
was always making me read
and write, read and write.

00:49:09.160 --> 00:49:13.037
I would copy out entire books
by hand. There was always

00:49:13.120 --> 00:49:16.800
this control. It wasn't like
he'd say, "Khabib, go do this",

00:49:17.280 --> 00:49:21.040
and you could just walk away and not
do it. When he said, "Go do it", you

00:49:21.160 --> 00:49:24.597
did it. My father never
forgot anything. He had a

00:49:24.680 --> 00:49:28.457
phenomenal memory. He'd be like,
"Did you do it?" And everything he

00:49:28.540 --> 00:49:30.520
told you, he remembered. He just did.

00:49:31.120 --> 00:49:31.797
- He checked you.

00:49:31.880 --> 00:49:35.860
- He was like, "Come here."
And he'd check. I knew it wasn't something

00:49:35.960 --> 00:49:39.737
I could get away with. So,
you know, since childhood, I

00:49:39.820 --> 00:49:43.740
was lucky that my father
always kept me close, and I

00:49:44.600 --> 00:49:50.220
found myself in this environment
among fighters who at that time-

00:49:50.560 --> 00:49:54.417
... were, I don't know, they just
didn't compete in America and Europe back

00:49:54.500 --> 00:49:58.840
then. But in the post-Soviet space,
they were the best at that time.

00:50:00.040 --> 00:50:03.180
And it helped me a lot
to become mentally strong.

00:50:04.800 --> 00:50:08.900
- Tell me more about your father.
You've read a lot.

00:50:09.920 --> 00:50:13.402
You didn't just fight. You were
well-rounded and you told several stories

00:50:13.486 --> 00:50:18.780
about this. There was a book,
what is it called? Countries and Peoples.

00:50:19.620 --> 00:50:21.720
- Yes, from my childhood. - It is, really.

00:50:22.020 --> 00:50:25.460
- Yes. - And it went on- -
The approach was the same.

00:50:25.880 --> 00:50:29.717
- Tell that story because I think it's
important for the parents listening to us

00:50:29.800 --> 00:50:33.097
to understand this.
You're not just trying to create a

00:50:33.180 --> 00:50:36.877
champion. You're trying
to raise a well-rounded person, a

00:50:36.960 --> 00:50:39.340
wise person, a person with depth.

00:50:40.320 --> 00:50:44.080
- Yes, you have to give the right
motivation to kids with proper

00:50:44.180 --> 00:50:47.897
communication. My father
was very good at this. I

00:50:47.980 --> 00:50:51.737
now realize interacting
with my own kids how wise he

00:50:51.820 --> 00:50:54.660
was and how deeply he understood this.

00:50:55.940 --> 00:50:59.737
Because when a child is eight,
10 years old, and when they are

00:50:59.820 --> 00:51:03.737
just beginning to form as a person,
it is important to have

00:51:03.820 --> 00:51:08.730
the right approach. I now understand
how farsighted my father's approach was.

00:51:09.450 --> 00:51:13.240
First, he tried not to give
me anything for free. Only

00:51:13.700 --> 00:51:17.457
sometimes I could get something
for free. For example, before a

00:51:17.540 --> 00:51:21.437
holiday, like Eid al-Fitr or before school

00:51:21.520 --> 00:51:25.117
started, Father would
give money. I'd go buy

00:51:25.200 --> 00:51:28.920
clothes at the market for back to school,
that kind of thing, you know?

00:51:29.500 --> 00:51:33.337
And at other times, he always told me,
"Well, if you want it, you need to

00:51:33.420 --> 00:51:36.400
earn it. You want me to give
you money just like that?"

00:51:37.460 --> 00:51:41.060
There would be some work around
the house and so on that I had to do.

00:51:41.740 --> 00:51:44.840
And I knew that encouragement
would always be there.

00:51:45.580 --> 00:51:49.257
My father always had this kind
of approach. He set a very

00:51:49.340 --> 00:51:53.297
strong personal example,
very strong, and I really learnt a

00:51:53.380 --> 00:51:57.160
lot from him. Took a lot.
And then, as you mentioned,

00:51:57.580 --> 00:52:01.177
there was the book, Countries
and Peoples. Someone gave it to

00:52:01.260 --> 00:52:05.157
him as a gift. My father read
through it, and he realized

00:52:05.240 --> 00:52:12.240
that it was perfect for me, for a child
who was 10, 11, maybe 12 at the time.

00:52:13.240 --> 00:52:18.397
That book was part of my life for about
two or three years, something like that.

00:52:18.480 --> 00:52:23.400
- It was about 193 countries.
The geography, history, all the details.

00:52:23.940 --> 00:52:27.580
- For each country, it describes
its geographical location,

00:52:27.920 --> 00:52:31.760
which countries it bordered,
its major rivers, mountains,

00:52:32.080 --> 00:52:35.477
cities, history, economy,
finances. Just brief

00:52:35.560 --> 00:52:39.377
information about every country.
My father said, "You'll

00:52:39.460 --> 00:52:42.620
tell me about each country,
and I'll give you money for it."

00:52:44.120 --> 00:52:45.470
And I thought, "All right."

00:52:46.180 --> 00:52:50.400
I knew this was like my own little
capital just sitting there waiting for me.

00:52:51.380 --> 00:52:55.297
All I had to do was come,
take that book, read it, understand

00:52:55.380 --> 00:52:57.810
it. Then my father would
take the book and say,

00:52:58.760 --> 00:53:01.430
"Now, tell me what you read."
And he would check.

00:53:02.360 --> 00:53:06.277
He would look through it. The countries
were arranged alphabetically. A

00:53:06.360 --> 00:53:10.277
for Andorra, Angola, and so on.
B for Belgium, Brazil, and

00:53:10.360 --> 00:53:14.197
so on. Everything went
in alphabetical order. I started

00:53:14.280 --> 00:53:17.200
from A and read them all
straight to the very end.

00:53:18.080 --> 00:53:21.927
Like every single time when
I needed the money, I did

00:53:22.010 --> 00:53:26.000
that. And for example,
I go over the first 40 countries,

00:53:26.340 --> 00:53:32.220
he'd check a box, and then I continued.
That's how my father would test me.

00:53:34.320 --> 00:53:40.760
Let's just say that my knowledge
of geography comes from back then.

00:53:41.920 --> 00:53:43.920
- Did you realize how big the world was?

00:53:44.820 --> 00:53:46.657
- No. - As a child, you don't understand?

00:53:46.740 --> 00:53:50.617
- At that time, I didn't understand.
But since then, I've had this desire

00:53:50.700 --> 00:53:54.357
to travel. I really wanted
to travel, visit different

00:53:54.440 --> 00:53:58.680
countries, see wonders of the world,
the Colosseum, the pyramids.

00:53:59.580 --> 00:54:03.860
But all of this is from childhood,
from what I read and wrote.

00:54:05.000 --> 00:54:10.000
It wasn't just about reading. I also had
to rewrite it. I had to write it down.

00:54:10.880 --> 00:54:14.660
I always wrote down what
I read. And actually,

00:54:16.400 --> 00:54:20.277
this is very good advice for parents,
you know. They can use this

00:54:20.360 --> 00:54:27.360
with their children too. They can tell
them to sit down and copy books by hand.

00:54:28.380 --> 00:54:35.380
First of all, eyesight improves. Reading
improves. Writing, how you write improves.

00:54:36.110 --> 00:54:39.650
Your handwriting. And it stays
with you when you read and write.

00:54:41.050 --> 00:54:45.900
It really develops a child.
Not only I believe that,

00:54:46.770 --> 00:54:50.507
I actually do advise parents
to motivate their kids

00:54:50.590 --> 00:54:55.010
this way. You can simply
create some kind of challenge

00:54:55.930 --> 00:55:01.210
that children benefit from and reward
them for it after it is done.

00:55:02.510 --> 00:55:05.310
This really helps develop a child's mind.

00:55:06.590 --> 00:55:10.190
- I actually saw advice
from the great writers

00:55:11.310 --> 00:55:14.910
who said that they remembered doing
the same thing when they were young.

00:55:15.490 --> 00:55:18.370
When they first started writing,
they just simply copied

00:55:19.230 --> 00:55:25.150
other legendary writers. You read their
work and then you type it out yourself,

00:55:26.050 --> 00:55:28.900
and you start absorbing that
style into your bloodstream.

00:55:29.660 --> 00:55:32.747
- Well, it needs to be done in childhood.

00:55:32.830 --> 00:55:36.310
When the child is ready
to learn and his mind is open,

00:55:37.230 --> 00:55:40.670
let's say as a metaphor,
when his table is clean,

00:55:41.070 --> 00:55:44.710
not occupied with clutter,
then as a father,

00:55:45.170 --> 00:55:49.730
you can help them place all the right
things on the table in their proper place.

00:55:51.270 --> 00:55:57.167
Let's say put the food in one place,
flowers in another, something

00:55:57.250 --> 00:56:04.250
like that. It is important.
That's why I believe I was very lucky. My

00:56:04.410 --> 00:56:08.640
father did the right thing. He provided
me with the right kind of information,

00:56:09.710 --> 00:56:13.447
and I learned a lot just
from being around him. I

00:56:13.530 --> 00:56:15.480
learned so much just from his presence.

00:56:16.390 --> 00:56:20.570
He was there at home, and then
we also went to competitions.

00:56:21.690 --> 00:56:27.430
He was always there at trainings and
at camps, so I absorbed a lot from him,

00:56:28.570 --> 00:56:32.210
and it was interesting
for me too. Of course,

00:56:34.130 --> 00:56:37.907
when you're a teenager, sometimes
you're tired, sometimes you want to

00:56:37.990 --> 00:56:41.990
break free. All of that was there. But

00:56:44.130 --> 00:56:48.650
my father had the right approach. He
influenced me a lot and in the right way.

00:56:49.390 --> 00:56:52.110
- And there's the physical
component too of hard work.

00:56:53.190 --> 00:56:57.060
There's a story you told about
the time he made you dig a big hole

00:56:57.710 --> 00:57:02.227
just because it was difficult.
There's wisdom in that.

00:57:02.310 --> 00:57:05.460
That you just need to work.
You need to stay busy all the time.

00:57:05.740 --> 00:57:09.095
- These were training camps from two
thousand and five to two thousand

00:57:09.179 --> 00:57:09.867
and seven.

00:57:09.950 --> 00:57:13.727
In the summer, we went to the mountains.
There was a children's camp there, an

00:57:13.810 --> 00:57:18.530
old Soviet-style pioneer camp where
we stayed doing our runs in the forest.

00:57:19.430 --> 00:57:23.387
Together, we built a small
training area there with a rope, a

00:57:23.470 --> 00:57:27.320
punching bag, a pull-up bar.
We did sprints there. We pulled

00:57:27.410 --> 00:57:31.327
resistance bands. After running
in the mountains, we would come back

00:57:31.410 --> 00:57:35.047
and work there. There were
almost no mats. We built the base

00:57:35.130 --> 00:57:38.827
ourselves. It had a dining
room on the first floor and an

00:57:38.910 --> 00:57:42.650
attic space where we slept.
We would come downstairs, eat,

00:57:42.890 --> 00:57:46.447
go outside, train in that little
sports area, then run in the

00:57:46.530 --> 00:57:50.130
forest. It was somewhere
around twelve hundred meters

00:57:50.330 --> 00:57:54.267
above sea level, a conifer
forest. We spent the whole

00:57:54.350 --> 00:57:58.047
summer there. There we'd train
in the morning, then there was

00:57:58.130 --> 00:58:02.350
nothing to do all day, and in the evening
we had training sessions again.

00:58:03.290 --> 00:58:06.910
But during the day, so we wouldn't
be busy with unnecessary things,

00:58:07.410 --> 00:58:11.067
my father sometimes gave us work.
And we'd ask, "Why are we

00:58:11.150 --> 00:58:14.947
digging this pit?" He'd say,
"Well, people used to use it like a

00:58:15.030 --> 00:58:18.907
refrigerator. When you dig
two or three meters down, it

00:58:18.990 --> 00:58:22.970
is cold inside. You can put milk there,
cheese, things like that, so the

00:58:23.090 --> 00:58:26.967
food does not go bad."
And we were like, "Okay, but do

00:58:27.050 --> 00:58:29.350
we really need these
refrigerators every day?"

00:58:30.210 --> 00:58:34.067
So in that sense, this was his
approach back then. He always had this

00:58:34.150 --> 00:58:35.370
kind of unique approach.

00:58:36.190 --> 00:58:39.970
- Well, what's the philosophy here?
That you gotta be busy all the time,

00:58:40.750 --> 00:58:42.747
working hard, doing something difficult.

00:58:42.830 --> 00:58:46.687
- Yes, it's very dangerous
to give a child free time in

00:58:46.770 --> 00:58:50.507
adolescence. They should
always be busy learning new

00:58:50.590 --> 00:58:54.367
information, improving,
acquiring new skills. A person

00:58:54.450 --> 00:58:58.147
should always be busy. When you're
sixteen, well, what can be on your

00:58:58.230 --> 00:59:02.010
mind? You should constantly
develop and improve.

00:59:03.030 --> 00:59:06.907
And by this time, you should already,
I believe, have decided what you want to

00:59:06.990 --> 00:59:13.890
become. You should already be
investing in what you want to turn into.

00:59:15.570 --> 00:59:19.507
- By the way, you had several very
good conversations with Nurlan, with

00:59:19.590 --> 00:59:23.107
Adam, which I highly recommend.
In one of them, your brother

00:59:23.190 --> 00:59:26.750
Abubakar told a story
that when you were young,

00:59:27.490 --> 00:59:31.310
there were several street fights,
maybe many, I don't know. He

00:59:31.430 --> 00:59:34.850
said he was the one who got you
into it. You were kind of bigger,

00:59:35.770 --> 00:59:39.310
and he needed protection at that time.
You were that protection.

00:59:39.910 --> 00:59:45.170
Can you tell us these stories? How often
did you fight on the streets of Dagestan?

00:59:46.010 --> 00:59:49.830
- Well, let's start with the fact
that I never bullied anyone. Never.

00:59:50.370 --> 00:59:54.490
Although I physically could bully,
yes, let's say I had the capability.

00:59:56.470 --> 00:59:59.530
I wasn't the kind of person
who started the fights.

01:00:00.790 --> 01:00:03.890
- You didn't start? - I didn't.
Well— - Tried to finish.

01:00:04.030 --> 01:00:10.050
- Well, maybe there were some moments,
but mostly no. Mostly I didn't start.

01:00:10.790 --> 01:00:12.850
Abubakar, sure, he was like that.

01:00:13.830 --> 01:00:16.930
In my circle, I had some guys
who were a little bit like that.

01:00:17.710 --> 01:00:21.407
- He said that he's a bit of—
- He was a troublemaker.

01:00:21.490 --> 01:00:26.090
He was a troublemaker, and because
of him, I got into trouble many times.

01:00:27.110 --> 01:00:29.170
When you're, let's say, fourteen,

01:00:29.990 --> 01:00:33.787
fifteen years old and your
brother is fighting. You don't

01:00:33.870 --> 01:00:37.350
really ask who's right
or who's wrong. You just go in,

01:00:37.790 --> 01:00:41.607
you start to, as we say,
you interfere. You just have

01:00:41.690 --> 01:00:45.170
to go in, right? But when
you're older, more conscious,

01:00:46.000 --> 01:00:48.600
when you're twenty,
twenty-five or thirty years old,

01:00:49.470 --> 01:00:52.400
this is when you really start telling him,

01:00:53.450 --> 01:00:57.410
"You know, Abubakar,
I think you're wrong here. Yes,

01:00:57.690 --> 01:01:01.527
we'll finish this right now,
but in the future, I wouldn't want

01:01:01.610 --> 01:01:04.850
you to get involved because
I think it's wrong, right?"

01:01:05.430 --> 01:01:09.310
Well, as kids, we just didn't ask.
We just went right in.

01:01:09.930 --> 01:01:13.670
When we moved to Makhachkala in 1999,

01:01:13.970 --> 01:01:19.650
let's say the end of 1999,
so there were—we were many brothers,

01:01:20.610 --> 01:01:24.567
more than ten of us. We lived in one
house. Some were in school, some

01:01:24.650 --> 01:01:28.507
in college, some in university.
But we all had one routine. We

01:01:28.590 --> 01:01:32.210
trained in the morning, then went
to school. We'd come home, rest,

01:01:32.450 --> 01:01:35.970
do homework, then train
in the evening, come home and rest,

01:01:36.430 --> 01:01:40.267
without mothers, just by ourselves.
Father gathered

01:01:40.350 --> 01:01:43.787
everyone. He took in close
friends and family, his

01:01:43.870 --> 01:01:47.550
nephews, cousins, relatives,
those who didn't have a father,

01:01:47.820 --> 01:01:51.570
and so on. He took them in,
and we all lived in one house. We

01:01:51.690 --> 01:01:55.570
cooked, cleaned, did laundry
all by ourselves. It was like,

01:01:55.710 --> 01:02:01.890
well, some kind of army life, you know?
And when the brothers had some problems,

01:02:03.270 --> 01:02:08.970
let's say misunderstandings,
we didn't go easy on those guys.

01:02:10.170 --> 01:02:13.430
And even those who lived
around there near that house,

01:02:14.890 --> 01:02:18.787
in that district, in the settlement,
everyone knew that there were lots

01:02:18.870 --> 01:02:25.707
of brothers living there. So they had
to be careful. And we had a football field

01:02:25.790 --> 01:02:31.310
there. It was right in front of the house,
and everyone who came to play there,

01:02:32.230 --> 01:02:36.173
we constantly had fights
there, misunderstandings.

01:02:36.256 --> 01:02:38.350
There were older brothers.

01:02:39.070 --> 01:02:43.027
They were always watching us, keeping us
from trouble. "Don't do this. Don't do"

01:02:43.110 --> 01:02:46.370
that. Watch your mouth."
But we had our own little group.

01:02:47.190 --> 01:02:51.067
The age difference between
us was maybe two, three

01:02:51.150 --> 01:02:56.050
years. There were five or six of us.
We'd always go outside and play football.

01:02:58.290 --> 01:03:02.147
If our team was losing,
then the game would just

01:03:02.230 --> 01:03:06.990
turn into a whole different sport,
and that's how we were growing up.

01:03:07.990 --> 01:03:12.051
We spent six, seven years
there, almost ten years.

01:03:12.135 --> 01:03:14.870
We were living together, growing,

01:03:15.230 --> 01:03:20.160
training. A lot has happened
over that time, but I was never...

01:03:21.790 --> 01:03:25.507
Well, maybe just a couple
of times, okay? Mostly, I was

01:03:25.590 --> 01:03:29.610
never the initiator of fights
with some exceptions.

01:03:30.450 --> 01:03:33.550
I just remember since childhood,
my father always told me,

01:03:34.870 --> 01:03:40.870
"You don't need to use force on the
street." My father looked at all of this

01:03:41.730 --> 01:03:43.230
in a completely different way.

01:03:44.390 --> 01:03:48.203
- What is your understanding of the
difference between the street fight

01:03:48.286 --> 01:03:49.120
and sports?

01:03:49.790 --> 01:03:54.790
- There is a very big difference.
I saw many fights where

01:03:56.690 --> 01:04:02.370
if you put those same guys into sparring,
in wrestling, MMA or combat Sambo,

01:04:03.960 --> 01:04:07.787
one guy could beat the other
very easily. But the street is

01:04:07.870 --> 01:04:12.790
completely different. There are
no rules, no referees, no points.

01:04:13.770 --> 01:04:17.950
You just fight there,
and it's totally different.

01:04:18.770 --> 01:04:24.130
I can say I actually had
a major turning point in my life.

01:04:26.910 --> 01:04:31.003
Let's say the one that,
in terms of psychology,

01:04:31.086 --> 01:04:36.330
really changed my whole
attitude towards MMA.

01:04:37.250 --> 01:04:41.330
Back in twenty oh two, twenty oh three,
my father kept me in wrestling.

01:04:42.350 --> 01:04:46.287
He trained MMA combat Sambo,
but wanted me to stay

01:04:46.370 --> 01:04:50.530
in wrestling. My cousin, who was older
than me by a couple of months,

01:04:52.090 --> 01:04:55.470
he was training with my father.
His freestyle wrestling was weak,

01:04:56.050 --> 01:04:59.470
so my father sent him to me,
to the place where I was training.

01:05:00.650 --> 01:05:04.487
It was called the School of Higher
Sports Mastery. The local guys

01:05:04.570 --> 01:05:10.947
from the city know this place. He came
to practice and got into it with a guy

01:05:11.030 --> 01:05:14.767
in our gym who was heavier, maybe one

01:05:14.850 --> 01:05:18.090
class heavier. This guy
was the best in his weight,

01:05:18.570 --> 01:05:24.330
winning Dagestan and the city too.
So they got into a conflict.

01:05:25.750 --> 01:05:32.750
They were arguing. My brother
had just joined. He was new to

01:05:32.870 --> 01:05:36.627
our freestyle wrestling gym,
right? But I knew the other guy

01:05:36.710 --> 01:05:41.510
well. They paired up and they got into it.
Well, that's my brother, right?

01:05:42.910 --> 01:05:46.467
So the guy goes, "Let's
meet up after." And they

01:05:46.550 --> 01:05:50.390
agreed, as we say, to step
outside after the training.

01:05:50.690 --> 01:05:57.690
I remember it was raining heavily, a real
downpour. The guy brought his brother. I

01:05:58.470 --> 01:06:04.490
came with mine. We went outside
and they started fighting one-on-one.

01:06:05.550 --> 01:06:08.810
I remember he shot in,
lifted and took him down.

01:06:09.090 --> 01:06:12.690
Abdurakhman, my brother, threw up
a triangle and he choked him out.

01:06:15.410 --> 01:06:21.087
When we went out, I was thinking
Abdurakhman will lose to this guy. I even

01:06:21.170 --> 01:06:26.580
visualized it happening, the whole thing.
Like, this guy beats him, and then

01:06:27.550 --> 01:06:30.990
I start fighting. Well, I'm not
going there for my brother to lose.

01:06:31.750 --> 01:06:33.750
In my head, I was getting into a fight.

01:06:34.920 --> 01:06:38.837
But he threw him locked up in a triangle.
For the first time I saw

01:06:38.920 --> 01:06:42.477
with my own eyes how someone
chokes another person with a

01:06:42.560 --> 01:06:45.000
triangle and they lose consciousness.

01:06:45.860 --> 01:06:46.647
- Wow.

01:06:46.730 --> 01:06:53.480
- They fought, he put him to sleep. We
had to pull them apart, me and other guys.

01:06:55.220 --> 01:06:59.600
Fights over, Abdurrahman won. And on the
way home, I'm like, "Abdurrahman, wow.

01:07:01.280 --> 01:07:05.760
You impress me." I came home
and immediately told my father.

01:07:07.190 --> 01:07:11.730
I said... That was in 2002
or '03, if I'm not mistaken.

01:07:12.980 --> 01:07:16.600
I am 14 years old. I said,
"I'm switching to combat Sambo."

01:07:17.120 --> 01:07:20.877
I said, "What Abdurrahman did,
the one he choked out, he's

01:07:20.960 --> 01:07:24.730
not just anyone in the gym.
He's one of the best wrestlers,

01:07:24.820 --> 01:07:26.270
but he couldn't do anything."

01:07:27.700 --> 01:07:31.260
My father said, "You'll go
to wrestling, but you'll come to me,

01:07:31.580 --> 01:07:34.540
I'll teach you. You'll learn
techniques here and so on.

01:07:36.520 --> 01:07:40.320
But I want you to gain wrestling
skills." I started going three

01:07:40.420 --> 01:07:43.120
days to train with my father,
three days to wrestling.

01:07:44.000 --> 01:07:48.160
And at that moment, I realized that no
matter how strong the wrestler is,

01:07:49.420 --> 01:07:53.280
lying on the back is where
the wrestling normally ends,

01:07:53.720 --> 01:07:57.310
but MMA only begins there. And I was like,

01:07:58.420 --> 01:08:02.560
I thought, "I need this. I need this mixed
style." I realized this was for me.

01:08:03.460 --> 01:08:07.217
I started going to my father's
trainings, despite that he didn't

01:08:07.300 --> 01:08:11.057
let me. He didn't want me to do
fighting. I think most people

01:08:11.140 --> 01:08:14.920
don't know this. My father wanted
me to do freestyle wrestling or

01:08:15.060 --> 01:08:18.677
judo, but in my head,
I already had this mixed style. I

01:08:18.760 --> 01:08:22.397
always wanted to compete.
I was already getting tapes to

01:08:22.480 --> 01:08:26.097
watch. I always wanted
to compete where there are no

01:08:26.180 --> 01:08:28.960
rules, where I could fully use my skills.

01:08:29.540 --> 01:08:33.980
- Maximum freedom. - Yes, judo,
Sambo, freestyle, grappling,

01:08:34.080 --> 01:08:37.520
jujitsu. More people knew
jujitsu than grappling.

01:08:39.240 --> 01:08:42.797
After that, I switched,
and from there my journey slowly

01:08:42.880 --> 01:08:48.180
started, which I had already begun.
That's when I started the amateur journey.

01:08:49.520 --> 01:08:53.357
Then when I started getting
good results as an amateur, I

01:08:53.440 --> 01:08:57.420
realized that I can switch
to pro and achieve success.

01:08:57.740 --> 01:09:01.600
Sambo. In combat Sambo.
Combat Sambo. I competed in

01:09:01.700 --> 01:09:05.440
all kinds of sports.
Everything that involves wrestling and

01:09:05.540 --> 01:09:09.180
fighting. I competed everywhere.
I competed in freestyle, in

01:09:09.280 --> 01:09:13.057
judo, in grappling, in combat Sambo.
I competed in sport

01:09:13.140 --> 01:09:16.940
Sambo, in hand-to-hand combat,
in pankration. My father

01:09:17.060 --> 01:09:20.777
put me in all competitions.
He would say, "You have a

01:09:20.860 --> 01:09:24.297
competition here and another
one there. Now you are

01:09:24.380 --> 01:09:28.257
preparing for this one. You will
compete in this weight, under these

01:09:28.340 --> 01:09:32.117
rules, in this sport." And he
was sending me everywhere. He would tell

01:09:32.200 --> 01:09:36.117
me, "You will need this in the future.
The more competition experience you have,

01:09:36.200 --> 01:09:39.660
the more relaxed and confident
you'll feel. It builds up over time."

01:09:40.260 --> 01:09:44.080
When I was young, I was losing as well.
I go to a judo competition,

01:09:44.300 --> 01:09:48.237
win two matches and lose two matches.
I would ask, "Father, why are

01:09:48.320 --> 01:09:51.379
you sending me there?
This is not my sport." And he'd say, "No,

01:09:51.462 --> 01:09:52.295
go and compete."

01:09:53.380 --> 01:09:57.197
So, okay, I went, I cut
weight. The next day you

01:09:57.280 --> 01:10:01.177
come in, you see 50 competitors
in your weight class. You

01:10:01.260 --> 01:10:05.117
let this weight,
this competitive energy pass

01:10:05.200 --> 01:10:08.940
through you, and psychologically
you get better, better,

01:10:09.060 --> 01:10:12.100
better each time.
You become more relaxed about it.

01:10:13.300 --> 01:10:17.237
And this moment really affected me,
although then I didn't

01:10:17.320 --> 01:10:21.117
agree with my father.
Back then I thought, "Why should I

01:10:21.200 --> 01:10:27.020
compete in other sports?" He said, "You
can wrestle, right? Well, go wrestle."

01:10:28.140 --> 01:10:32.020
I was saying, "But judo isn't my sport.
It's hard for me there."

01:10:32.640 --> 01:10:36.437
He says, "Well, you went
on four times. Look, you won

01:10:36.520 --> 01:10:40.057
twice, then lost twice.
You competed four times. You're

01:10:40.140 --> 01:10:42.340
15 years old. You're just developing.

01:10:43.500 --> 01:10:46.620
Do you know how valuable
this experience is for you?

01:10:47.480 --> 01:10:51.300
Four matches in one day."
Now when I'm coaching,

01:10:51.980 --> 01:10:58.757
I understand the psychological approach,
how important it is. I realize now how

01:10:58.840 --> 01:11:02.320
correctly he prepared
me for the big stage.

01:11:03.240 --> 01:11:06.897
The preparation was already
happening then when I was

01:11:06.980 --> 01:11:10.940
15 years old. For example,
when I went into the biggest

01:11:11.040 --> 01:11:14.980
fight in combat sports
history, when I fought in

01:11:15.300 --> 01:11:22.060
2018 here in Las Vegas. At that point,
I was already at my peak, prime time.

01:11:23.600 --> 01:11:29.720
I was 30 years old. I went through
all possible competitions as an amateur

01:11:29.960 --> 01:11:34.120
and a professional.
And you know what? I was ready.

01:11:35.760 --> 01:11:39.600
This preparation, it started
back then when I was 15.

01:11:40.140 --> 01:11:44.000
It's not like they give you a fight
and you prepare for two months.

01:11:44.360 --> 01:11:48.600
Preparation starts long before
you even step into the octagon.

01:11:50.140 --> 01:11:54.822
- So this experience of competitions,
which started at 15, it continued,

01:11:54.906 --> 01:11:56.640
it expanded. - Yeah, of course.

01:11:56.800 --> 01:12:00.180
- So can you explain what
was going on in your head?

01:12:01.460 --> 01:12:05.080
- I didn't want to lose. I just didn't. It

01:12:05.200 --> 01:12:08.880
never occurred to me that I
could get hurt, that someone could

01:12:09.000 --> 01:12:12.777
hurt me, that I might break
a finger somewhere. I never

01:12:12.860 --> 01:12:17.460
had that in my head, that I could get hit,
that I'd get a scratch, and so on.

01:12:18.300 --> 01:12:20.700
I don't know if you can
call it perfectionism.

01:12:21.800 --> 01:12:25.757
I didn't want to lose.
And to not lose, I knew I needed

01:12:25.840 --> 01:12:29.757
to compete a lot and improve. Training is

01:12:29.840 --> 01:12:33.740
one thing, but competing is different.
I understood that the more

01:12:33.860 --> 01:12:37.660
I competed, the more experience I
would gain. I had to go through it.

01:12:38.360 --> 01:12:42.197
It was constantly on my mind.
This understanding that I

01:12:42.280 --> 01:12:46.140
must compete a lot came
to me at an early age, since

01:12:46.280 --> 01:12:49.920
I was fifteen, sixteen,
seventeen, eighteen, and I

01:12:50.040 --> 01:12:55.260
never stopped thinking about it.
So it was always in the back of my mind.

01:12:56.280 --> 01:12:58.280
- Were you confident that you would win?

01:12:58.700 --> 01:12:59.600
- In my youth? No.

01:13:00.160 --> 01:13:01.397
- Were you afraid to lose?

01:13:01.480 --> 01:13:04.880
- Yeah, in my youth, I wasn't
always so sure. I just wasn't.

01:13:05.480 --> 01:13:08.980
Because I never stood out.
Yes, I had a coach for a

01:13:09.080 --> 01:13:13.320
father, and how many,
how many trainers have kids who

01:13:14.160 --> 01:13:18.057
compete but aren't successful?
And then when I went to

01:13:18.140 --> 01:13:22.117
the big leagues, you know,
I had already fought. I had done

01:13:22.200 --> 01:13:25.470
sixteen professional fights
across the post-Soviet space.

01:13:26.100 --> 01:13:29.240
Later, when I was already
signed to the UFC,

01:13:30.040 --> 01:13:33.710
there I already had this feeling.
You know, with

01:13:33.860 --> 01:13:37.557
each fight, I was getting
mentally stronger.

01:13:37.640 --> 01:13:42.000
My mind was becoming more
and more solid, like concrete.

01:13:43.190 --> 01:13:49.860
When I went out there, I knew, yes,
these are fights. Yes, you can take a hit.

01:13:50.620 --> 01:13:54.950
Yes, anything can happen when
knees, elbows, fists are flying,

01:13:55.800 --> 01:13:58.050
when you can get caught
in a choke, you know?

01:13:59.150 --> 01:14:04.100
But I thought, "If they don't
knock me out, how will they beat me?

01:14:05.060 --> 01:14:10.080
I have fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes
is enough to make a person tired."

01:14:11.080 --> 01:14:16.400
I'm like, "Okay, if you wanna stop me,
come here. I'll give you that chance.

01:14:17.480 --> 01:14:22.340
Let's get in the octagon."
I had this impatience during fight week.

01:14:23.260 --> 01:14:27.197
I wanted to go in there
and feel my opponent. I just

01:14:27.280 --> 01:14:31.037
wanted to be inside
the cage for them to close

01:14:31.120 --> 01:14:35.420
us in, for the referee to say,
"Ready? Ready. Fight."

01:14:36.380 --> 01:14:40.180
And here I wanted to feel,
to grapple with him and

01:14:40.360 --> 01:14:43.950
feel his strength, his skills, his energy,

01:14:44.380 --> 01:14:48.257
and for it not to stop.
And with any opponent I

01:14:48.340 --> 01:14:52.860
felt from the beginning, and I didn't
actually have superhuman strength.

01:14:53.980 --> 01:14:57.917
But from the beginning, when I
grabbed them in the first minute and

01:14:58.000 --> 01:15:02.340
then in the sixth or seventh minute,
I could feel them fading.

01:15:04.160 --> 01:15:08.630
I was, let's say, like squeezing
this energy out of them,

01:15:09.840 --> 01:15:13.700
and I was getting better
and better minute by minute.

01:15:15.200 --> 01:15:18.460
- Can you break down the technical
details of your top pressure?

01:15:19.200 --> 01:15:24.360
That pressure you put on in wrestling,
on the ground, all of it.

01:15:26.060 --> 01:15:29.010
How does it work?
Can you explain the philosophy behind it?

01:15:29.740 --> 01:15:33.697
- Over the years, I've learned
to use my strength properly. There's

01:15:33.780 --> 01:15:37.580
this sport called aikido.
I don't like it much, but

01:15:37.720 --> 01:15:41.940
I like their philosophy, where
your strength might work against you.

01:15:43.200 --> 01:15:46.997
I think for a lot of listeners, this
is gonna be a brand-new sport. But there

01:15:47.080 --> 01:15:50.697
is this sport called aikido,
and the whole philosophy

01:15:50.780 --> 01:15:55.980
behind it is using your opponent's force
against them. That's what I learned to do.

01:15:57.220 --> 01:16:00.880
And I have learned to force
an opponent into positions

01:16:02.000 --> 01:16:05.477
where they have to escape wasting
their energy. Like when we were sparring

01:16:05.560 --> 01:16:11.220
yesterday. That's exactly what I wanted.
I wanted you to feel that energy,

01:16:11.480 --> 01:16:14.660
that heavy top pressure.
We could have just played around.

01:16:15.760 --> 01:16:19.753
I could have gone easy on you,
but I wanted you to feel the real heavy

01:16:19.836 --> 01:16:20.669
pressure.

01:16:21.170 --> 01:16:23.776
And of course, please don't
think it was a sign of disrespect.

01:16:23.859 --> 01:16:26.160
It's quite the opposite.
- No, it was respect.

01:16:26.580 --> 01:16:28.380
- I just wanted you to feel that,

01:16:30.520 --> 01:16:34.457
you know, how exhausting it can be.
I think you felt it yourself that it

01:16:34.540 --> 01:16:38.437
was a bit different from the
kind of grappling you've dealt

01:16:38.520 --> 01:16:39.920
with before. I'm sure of it.

01:16:40.420 --> 01:16:42.663
- The only one who's even
close to that is, I mean,

01:16:42.746 --> 01:16:44.296
you're the absolute number one.

01:16:44.520 --> 01:16:47.794
But the only thing is, when I trained
with Roger Gracie in a different sport,

01:16:47.877 --> 01:16:50.837
you get that same feeling with him.
Like, the guy is just insanely heavy.

01:16:50.920 --> 01:16:54.497
- Mm-hmm. Pressure. Pressure.
Well, Roger, he's the

01:16:54.580 --> 01:16:58.480
greatest, too.
He's the greatest in his own sport. What

01:16:58.580 --> 01:17:03.340
makes a person unique is his style,
his style and his approach

01:17:04.720 --> 01:17:10.160
to his work. I always approach
my craft very professionally, you know,

01:17:10.280 --> 01:17:14.560
respectfully. I believe that if
you're gonna be in this game,

01:17:15.480 --> 01:17:19.620
in this sport, you have
to completely dedicate yourself to it.

01:17:20.260 --> 01:17:23.657
- But I think you had a deep understanding
of how to break an opponent, both

01:17:23.740 --> 01:17:27.120
physically and psychologically,
just looking at your style.

01:17:28.420 --> 01:17:32.960
- I've always been right there,
always fighting for position. I always--

01:17:34.520 --> 01:17:38.360
Look, I mean that I just always
had this thought in my head.

01:17:41.800 --> 01:17:45.580
My grandfather always told me,
"A dog that latches onto that one weak

01:17:45.720 --> 01:17:47.000
spot always wins."

01:17:48.720 --> 01:17:52.597
It's the same with a fighter.
When you're fighting on pure instinct, you

01:17:52.680 --> 01:17:56.597
feel your opponent's weakness. You
know where they're weak, and you have to

01:17:56.680 --> 01:18:03.560
keep pressing right there.
For example, let's say I'm fighting Conor,

01:18:03.840 --> 01:18:10.520
right? His strengths are his striking,
his timing and his speed, his boxing.

01:18:11.600 --> 01:18:15.397
Why would I stand and strike with him?
What am I supposed to do? I have to

01:18:15.480 --> 01:18:18.140
put pressure on his weak spot. So,

01:18:18.880 --> 01:18:22.757
That's what separates
the fighters who reach success, the

01:18:22.840 --> 01:18:26.480
highest level of success,
and become the best of the best.

01:18:27.480 --> 01:18:31.397
They know how to find
an opponent's weakness, and

01:18:31.480 --> 01:18:35.160
they pressure it relentlessly. So, mm,

01:18:36.220 --> 01:18:39.170
so it all comes down to having
the right strategy here.

01:18:40.420 --> 01:18:42.870
- Your fight with Conor,
I think, was the biggest

01:18:43.260 --> 01:18:45.720
fight in UFC history. That's for sure.

01:18:46.580 --> 01:18:50.390
Well, actually, in all of sports.
Do you think there will ever be another

01:18:50.560 --> 01:18:53.360
fight of that magnitude in the UFC?
Is it even possible?

01:18:55.520 --> 01:18:58.740
- Well, let's look at the history here.

01:19:00.420 --> 01:19:04.357
I mean, our sport is still
very young, say thirty-five

01:19:04.440 --> 01:19:08.980
years old, starting from the '90s.
Put it this way.

01:19:09.880 --> 01:19:12.820
Take, for example,
the sport most similar to MMA,

01:19:14.260 --> 01:19:18.900
which is, well, let's say boxing. How
old is boxing? A hundred and fifty years?

01:19:19.720 --> 01:19:23.840
Like, when you think boxing, what
pops into your head? Thrilla in Manila?

01:19:24.720 --> 01:19:27.580
- Yeah, yeah. Well,
I love Mike Tyson a lot too, so.

01:19:27.880 --> 01:19:31.220
- Well, Tyson had big fights,
but Mike Tyson never had that,

01:19:31.680 --> 01:19:35.597
Signature rival like Muhammad
Ali had in Joe Frazier.

01:19:35.680 --> 01:19:37.180
Yeah, he just didn't have one.

01:19:38.060 --> 01:19:42.600
I mean, who do we have? Evander Holyfield?
Look, Holyfield-Tyson is no Muhammad Ali.

01:19:44.340 --> 01:19:47.020
Take Ali and Frazier,
Thrilla in Manila, right?

01:19:48.900 --> 01:19:50.800
People called it the greatest rivalry,

01:19:51.800 --> 01:19:55.677
and it still is. In the 20th
century, there was nothing

01:19:55.760 --> 01:19:59.457
that could compare. In the 21st
century, the only thing you could

01:19:59.540 --> 01:20:03.780
compare to it, purely based on the
numbers, is Pacquiao and Mayweather.

01:20:04.900 --> 01:20:08.100
Yes, there was public interest,
but there wasn't the energy that there was

01:20:08.183 --> 01:20:09.883
with Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier.

01:20:11.420 --> 01:20:14.770
- Yeah, if I can just pause for a
second, I'll check on Perplexity.

01:20:15.260 --> 01:20:19.260
List the biggest boxing fights of all
time. It's Ali and Frazier, like you said.

01:20:19.500 --> 01:20:21.920
- Yeah, yeah. - The first, the third.

01:20:22.010 --> 01:20:25.510
- Well, when he lost, and then
the third fight, the Thrilla in Manila.

01:20:25.750 --> 01:20:28.000
- And Foreman, I must
say Ali versus Foreman.

01:20:28.100 --> 01:20:30.960
- Well, Foreman, that was the year,
I think, '74, right?

01:20:31.490 --> 01:20:34.490
- The fight was watched by up
to a billion people worldwide.

01:20:34.660 --> 01:20:38.610
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was one of those
things. Politics got mixed into it too.

01:20:39.260 --> 01:20:41.340
Well, it was actually a very big fight.

01:20:41.860 --> 01:20:45.700
- Sugar Ray Leonard, Duran, Sugar
Ray Leonard versus Thomas Hearns,

01:20:46.040 --> 01:20:51.100
Hagler versus Hearns. - Well, Hagler.
Hagler and Duran in Montreal.

01:20:51.260 --> 01:20:55.097
Sugar Ray Leonard and Duran
in Montreal when they fought, when

01:20:55.180 --> 01:20:59.057
he admitted after the fight that he lost
the mental game and broke down before

01:20:59.140 --> 01:21:01.480
the fight. But then
Sugar Ray beat him later.

01:21:02.400 --> 01:21:03.737
- Yeah, he came back and won.

01:21:03.820 --> 01:21:08.720
- Yeah. Well, if you look at it out
of everything that stands out, I think,

01:21:08.920 --> 01:21:12.857
You can mention Frazier and Muhammad Ali.
And there was also

01:21:12.940 --> 01:21:16.617
Joe Louis against German
Max Schmeling. Hitler stood

01:21:16.700 --> 01:21:20.597
behind Schmeling, and Roosevelt stood
behind Louis. For those who don't know

01:21:20.680 --> 01:21:22.840
this story, I just watched it recently.

01:21:24.100 --> 01:21:28.540
It was something incomparable. They
were so big. They were two of the most,

01:21:29.560 --> 01:21:34.987
the most famous athletes of their time.
Roosevelt was promoting Joe Louis,

01:21:35.070 --> 01:21:35.903
you know?

01:21:37.060 --> 01:21:40.857
At that moment for America,
it was like something incredible that a

01:21:40.940 --> 01:21:44.800
white president was promoting
a Black world champion.

01:21:45.060 --> 01:21:48.457
And on the other hand,
Hitler stood behind Schmeling.

01:21:48.540 --> 01:21:52.090
- It was what? Nineteen thirty-six,
nineteen thirty-eight. They had-

01:21:52.640 --> 01:21:54.090
- They fought twice? - Twice.

01:21:54.500 --> 01:21:56.397
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
They fought two times.

01:21:56.480 --> 01:22:00.317
- This wasn't just a good
boxing match, just a good fight.

01:22:00.400 --> 01:22:03.157
This was politics. Those were nations.

01:22:03.240 --> 01:22:05.717
- This was politics. This was nations.

01:22:05.800 --> 01:22:07.177
- Everything. - It all came together.

01:22:07.260 --> 01:22:11.017
- And it's the same thing with Ali too.
Muhammad Ali with the Vietnam

01:22:11.100 --> 01:22:13.240
War, all that stuff. - Yes, yes.

01:22:13.410 --> 01:22:17.210
- And his, and even religion is tied
into it. Everything here came together.

01:22:17.440 --> 01:22:19.820
- They simply went beyond sports.

01:22:20.740 --> 01:22:24.557
It was the exact same thing
when I fought Conor. That fight

01:22:24.640 --> 01:22:29.080
went beyond our sport.
It impacted every sport because

01:22:30.440 --> 01:22:32.600
athletes of all kinds of different sports,

01:22:33.620 --> 01:22:36.970
everyone who loves to compete,
it didn't matter if it was

01:22:37.100 --> 01:22:41.057
football, basketball, soccer,
or boxing, everyone was

01:22:41.140 --> 01:22:46.240
following this. And honestly,
will there be a fight like that?

01:22:47.300 --> 01:22:51.060
Well, it's hard for me to say,
but I think it'll happen. It'll happen

01:22:51.180 --> 01:22:55.040
for sure. There will always be champions.
There will always be rivalries.

01:22:55.360 --> 01:22:58.500
But when it'll happen,
that's just a matter of time.

01:22:59.260 --> 01:23:02.357
- So it's not entirely about the athletes.
It's about everything combined.

01:23:02.440 --> 01:23:06.277
- Yeah. It's everything combined. The way
he talked, what he stirred up, the lines

01:23:06.360 --> 01:23:09.837
he crossed, touching
on family, religion. And

01:23:09.920 --> 01:23:13.517
then somehow on one side
you had Conor, this really

01:23:13.600 --> 01:23:17.397
interesting champion who knew how to hype
himself up, and on the other side, you

01:23:17.480 --> 01:23:21.960
had this undefeated somebody
from nowhere, from the mountains.

01:23:22.820 --> 01:23:28.200
You know how it is. It all somehow,
all of it just kind of happened naturally.

01:23:28.480 --> 01:23:32.297
And it wasn't staged.
It was real. We had a real

01:23:32.380 --> 01:23:36.230
rivalry, unlike the way a lot of people
now just hype up interest in a fight,

01:23:36.420 --> 01:23:39.340
but people feel that energy.
It doesn't go anywhere.

01:23:40.440 --> 01:23:44.140
People can tell what's real and what's
fake. And because of that, we went,

01:23:44.760 --> 01:23:49.040
we went beyond our own sport.
That's what made this fight so massive.

01:23:49.920 --> 01:23:52.720
- Well, when you look into
your heart back then and now,

01:23:53.080 --> 01:23:55.740
did you have anger?
Did you have hatred for him?

01:23:57.420 --> 01:24:01.300
- Back then and even now,
I'd still keep a cool head.

01:24:02.820 --> 01:24:06.680
Nothing has changed.
When you let your emotions take over,

01:24:06.900 --> 01:24:10.377
when they're off the charts
and you completely lose

01:24:10.460 --> 01:24:14.560
control, that's a very bad place to be. So

01:24:15.620 --> 01:24:22.620
you'll tire out faster. You'll fall.
You'll fall for any kind of bait and so

01:24:22.939 --> 01:24:28.180
on. I just knew that I
needed to stay calm, composed,

01:24:29.640 --> 01:24:32.983
to stick to the plan
no matter what happened,

01:24:33.067 --> 01:24:35.960
and not go beyond my emotional limits.

01:24:37.640 --> 01:24:43.780
This is a very, very dangerous moment
when you give in to your emotions

01:24:45.200 --> 01:24:49.140
You have to control them.
Every single detail, every little thing

01:24:49.240 --> 01:24:52.900
has to be perfectly in place.
The second you let it all

01:24:53.060 --> 01:24:55.740
slip, everything becomes a total mess.

01:24:57.020 --> 01:25:01.080
So once the fight was finally done,
I just let all my emotions out.

01:25:02.140 --> 01:25:06.100
I had to step right in and prove it,
and punish him, and show them

01:25:06.240 --> 01:25:10.157
I'm better, that I'm better than him,
and put a final end to this whole

01:25:10.240 --> 01:25:14.380
bitter rivalry. When all of that
was over- - Your emotions came out?

01:25:14.580 --> 01:25:18.177
-... that's when my emotions just went
over the edge. But until the fight was

01:25:18.260 --> 01:25:21.940
completely finished,
starting from training, you know,

01:25:22.600 --> 01:25:25.224
at the press conferences,
at the weigh-ins, everywhere,

01:25:25.307 --> 01:25:26.407
in front of the media,

01:25:26.500 --> 01:25:30.400
everywhere, I kept myself completely
under control, and I was very good at it.

01:25:31.120 --> 01:25:35.740
Honestly, looking back it's
been almost eight years now.

01:25:37.520 --> 01:25:41.397
Looking back, well, I'm a little
surprised. At that point, I was a very

01:25:41.480 --> 01:25:45.377
emotional guy, too. Over these
eight years a lot has happened

01:25:45.460 --> 01:25:49.357
in my life, but I'm surprised
that I kept it together. And

01:25:49.440 --> 01:25:53.297
well, you know, it wasn't
easy for me to keep myself

01:25:53.380 --> 01:25:57.180
within my limits, to keep
myself under control like that.

01:25:57.840 --> 01:26:01.740
But here, again, I'll come
back to what I said, I was

01:26:01.840 --> 01:26:07.737
very lucky. My father called me
at that time I was here two months before

01:26:07.821 --> 01:26:08.654
the fight.

01:26:10.640 --> 01:26:13.910
His advice helped me out so
much because for me it was

01:26:15.020 --> 01:26:18.847
not just that it mattered,
it was actually the most important

01:26:18.930 --> 01:26:22.437
thing for me back then just to know my

01:26:22.520 --> 01:26:26.080
father's reaction,
how he was taking everything

01:26:26.600 --> 01:26:30.117
that was happening, because
there was just so much media

01:26:30.200 --> 01:26:33.680
coverage, so I knew
my father was watching.

01:26:34.440 --> 01:26:38.260
It was important for me
to know his take. I'd call and

01:26:38.360 --> 01:26:42.237
ask, and my father would even tell
me things I hadn't even asked him

01:26:42.320 --> 01:26:46.257
about. He'd bring it up on his own.
Because you know the way it

01:26:46.340 --> 01:26:50.260
is with us, between me and my father,
in our traditions, in our

01:26:50.380 --> 01:26:54.117
part of the world, in our family
for generations, in our village, there's

01:26:54.200 --> 01:26:58.137
just always this distance with your
father. Like, when you walk in, there

01:26:58.220 --> 01:27:02.060
are just so many things you can't let
yourself do in front of your father.

01:27:02.380 --> 01:27:06.257
You have to be like,
sort of like a soldier in front of a

01:27:06.340 --> 01:27:10.217
general, right? If you can even
make that comparison. If a soldier

01:27:10.300 --> 01:27:16.320
stands at attention like that, then with
us it's even, even stricter. Like even,

01:27:18.100 --> 01:27:20.760
just to give an example here.
For instance,

01:27:22.400 --> 01:27:26.337
imagine you're a father sitting there,
right? And your two-year-old

01:27:26.420 --> 01:27:28.770
kid walks up to you
and wants to play with you.

01:27:29.740 --> 01:27:33.000
You can't even, like, do that baby
talk thing with your own kid.

01:27:33.560 --> 01:27:34.997
- You don't have that kind of friendship.

01:27:35.080 --> 01:27:37.437
- You know it's a friendship,
but- - It's different, yes.

01:27:37.520 --> 01:27:41.437
- There's a certain distance that you
must keep around your father. You always

01:27:41.520 --> 01:27:44.500
have to be, like, completely buttoned up.

01:27:45.220 --> 01:27:47.803
You have to stand like a soldier
in front of your father.

01:27:47.887 --> 01:27:52.977
You don't let your emotions take over.
At that point, just to know

01:27:53.060 --> 01:27:56.840
what my father thought, who was,
like, all the way across the ocean,

01:27:57.280 --> 01:28:01.120
who couldn't just fly out
and be there to support his son

01:28:02.780 --> 01:28:06.537
and just be there by my side.
But for me, since he didn't have a

01:28:06.620 --> 01:28:10.557
visa, I just had to know exactly
what he thought. I didn't care what

01:28:10.640 --> 01:28:14.000
anyone else thought. I didn't
care about the opinions of, like,

01:28:14.220 --> 01:28:18.177
millions, tens of millions,
hundreds of millions watching this

01:28:18.260 --> 01:28:22.140
fight. I only ever cared
about one person and his take,

01:28:22.620 --> 01:28:26.960
what he thought and what he'd say to me.
But I couldn't call him and say,

01:28:28.120 --> 01:28:30.070
"Father, what do you think about this?"

01:28:30.720 --> 01:28:34.620
Well, we never had that. Well,
you had to wait. I would just call

01:28:34.760 --> 01:28:38.477
and wait to hear what he'd say.
And my father, he knew

01:28:38.560 --> 01:28:42.417
exactly where to draw the line
because he was in the exact

01:28:42.500 --> 01:28:46.237
same position with his own father
since his own father was still

01:28:46.320 --> 01:28:49.610
around. And then he had a son, too, right?

01:28:50.340 --> 01:28:53.657
And he understood me,
how I felt about him, since his

01:28:53.740 --> 01:28:56.240
relationship with his own
father was the same way.

01:28:57.780 --> 01:29:01.740
And in that sense, back then, my father
really kept me grounded mentally.

01:29:02.800 --> 01:29:07.580
He even told me something once.

01:29:08.500 --> 01:29:14.260
Do you know how diamonds are, like,
actually made? Under great pressure.

01:29:14.680 --> 01:29:18.100
He says, "You're under great
pressure, and you have a choice.

01:29:19.720 --> 01:29:23.680
You can break down and give up,
or you can get through it all

01:29:24.940 --> 01:29:26.920
properly, clearly, with dignity.

01:29:28.060 --> 01:29:31.657
Go in, prepare right, make weight,
recover, go in, win, and

01:29:31.740 --> 01:29:35.517
settle it once and for all."
And those exact kinds of

01:29:35.600 --> 01:29:39.420
moments, they really,
they deeply impacted me.

01:29:40.600 --> 01:29:44.940
- So because of those words,
you could cut everything off? Focus.

01:29:45.720 --> 01:29:51.160
- Well- - Mentally. - Mentally. Like,
if a million people showed up right there

01:29:51.280 --> 01:29:54.940
and told me right outside where I
was staying, at the hotel, right?

01:29:55.240 --> 01:29:58.917
Like, if a million people
gathered right under my window and

01:29:59.000 --> 01:30:00.650
said, "Hey, we've got your back."

01:30:01.500 --> 01:30:05.357
And honestly, just one call
from my father, it wouldn't even

01:30:05.440 --> 01:30:09.197
compare, because that one call
from my father, that one piece of

01:30:09.280 --> 01:30:12.960
advice, his support,
his voice, it charged me up

01:30:13.120 --> 01:30:16.000
way more than absolutely
everything else combined.

01:30:17.980 --> 01:30:21.797
- But I must say, José Aldo,
who is one of the greatest

01:30:21.880 --> 01:30:25.617
fighters of all time, and still Conor was

01:30:25.700 --> 01:30:29.437
arguably able
to psychologically break him.

01:30:29.520 --> 01:30:33.167
But with you, it seems like
Conor was not able to mentally

01:30:33.250 --> 01:30:37.280
affect you. Did he manage to get
into your head even a little?

01:30:37.420 --> 01:30:43.660
- No, not at all.
I had a clear understanding that

01:30:44.700 --> 01:30:48.996
physically and mentally I
was just way stronger than him.

01:30:49.079 --> 01:30:51.000
I didn't doubt myself for

01:30:51.900 --> 01:30:54.690
even 1%. Well, people,

01:30:56.130 --> 01:30:59.910
they can say whatever they want.
He's got a massive fan base too.

01:31:00.610 --> 01:31:02.410
Maybe they won't agree with that.

01:31:03.750 --> 01:31:07.667
But the Almighty gave me this unshakable
confidence that is just really hard for

01:31:07.750 --> 01:31:14.750
me to even put into words. And I just
deeply believe that I was better than

01:31:15.190 --> 01:31:20.030
him and that I was stronger than him,
and that in this matchup, well,

01:31:21.150 --> 01:31:25.210
I was supposed to win. I just had
this rock solid faith in myself.

01:31:26.650 --> 01:31:32.390
- Up until that moment, is it fair
to say that this was your toughest fight?

01:31:32.530 --> 01:31:34.230
- Up until that moment? - Correct.

01:31:34.470 --> 01:31:38.900
- One hundred percent. Because
fighting's all psychology, you know?

01:31:40.030 --> 01:31:44.210
It's a mental game. Mentally speaking,
that was my toughest fight.

01:31:47.030 --> 01:31:49.860
At that point, yeah.
But a tougher fight came later.

01:31:50.510 --> 01:31:52.060
- With Gaethje? - With Gaethje.

01:31:52.650 --> 01:31:54.987
- There were a lot of factors
that made it so tough.

01:31:55.070 --> 01:31:59.110
- Yes. - So can you explain?
You said somewhere that actually,

01:32:00.890 --> 01:32:04.647
unfortunately, or at least from my
perspective, unfortunately, we never

01:32:04.730 --> 01:32:08.207
got to see your absolute limit.
Were you, uh-

01:32:08.290 --> 01:32:12.907
- Not in fights, no.
You've never seen my limit in fights.

01:32:12.990 --> 01:32:16.850
- But you said that Gaethje
was the closest to it

01:32:17.310 --> 01:32:21.200
'cause of the whole process.
Can you explain why it was a tough fight,

01:32:21.410 --> 01:32:22.243
your last one?

01:32:22.990 --> 01:32:26.787
- First and foremost, it was because I
had lost my father. It was hard to pull

01:32:26.870 --> 01:32:30.647
myself together. Everything
piled up at once. My father was

01:32:30.730 --> 01:32:33.280
gone. And training without my father,

01:32:35.430 --> 01:32:39.327
without the person I was doing
all of this for, the person I

01:32:39.410 --> 01:32:43.660
wanted to become champion for,
first and foremost, to prove to him,

01:32:44.850 --> 01:32:49.610
uh, to prove to him that I
could become the best.

01:32:50.890 --> 01:32:54.790
And then the training
camp itself, physically

01:32:54.930 --> 01:32:59.450
I was not in the best shape.
I had injury after injury after injury.

01:33:00.590 --> 01:33:07.590
But mentally speaking, I stayed
completely sharp. Well, this is when you

01:33:08.290 --> 01:33:11.910
got injuries, your mental
game can slip a little,

01:33:12.950 --> 01:33:16.610
or things at home are going bad.
All of that impacts a person.

01:33:16.790 --> 01:33:22.690
One, two, three, four. All these things
affect you. You become, let's say not,

01:33:22.810 --> 01:33:26.707
not sharp. You lose your fire. Your fire

01:33:26.790 --> 01:33:30.050
leaves you, your focus leaves you,
your head is somewhere else.

01:33:30.730 --> 01:33:34.227
Even though you are physically
there, mentally you are somewhere

01:33:34.310 --> 01:33:37.210
else. But I always
stayed there. I knew it.

01:33:38.490 --> 01:33:42.290
Nobody had any idea that was
going to be my last fight. No

01:33:42.390 --> 01:33:44.970
one knew about the talk
I had with my mother.

01:33:45.350 --> 01:33:46.637
- But you knew and you were sure?

01:33:46.720 --> 01:33:50.567
- Well, I knew for myself. This is
my last fight. I was never going to

01:33:50.650 --> 01:33:54.510
step into the cage again.
I knew it, and I had to finish it

01:33:54.750 --> 01:33:56.150
right then and there because

01:33:57.110 --> 01:34:01.067
putting myself through all of that yet
again, it would have just been too

01:34:01.150 --> 01:34:04.930
hard on me if I got injured
and the fight fell through.

01:34:06.910 --> 01:34:10.627
And putting my mother through all
that stress again. I knew that all the

01:34:10.710 --> 01:34:14.690
anxiety I go through for three months
leading up to a fight, my mother

01:34:14.790 --> 01:34:20.227
goes through it too. I understood all of
that. I wanted to put an end to it because

01:34:20.310 --> 01:34:23.147
we'd already had that talk.
We already had an

01:34:23.230 --> 01:34:28.040
agreement. All of that combined,
I mean, mentally it just-- I was,

01:34:28.910 --> 01:34:31.170
you know, I was right on the edge. Like,

01:34:32.970 --> 01:34:35.870
it was a fine line and I
really was on the edge.

01:34:37.290 --> 01:34:39.430
- And I heard or maybe read somewhere

01:34:40.650 --> 01:34:44.547
that you said you were already
starting to miss it while the fight

01:34:44.630 --> 01:34:45.730
was still going on.

01:34:46.340 --> 01:34:50.110
- Yeah, inside the octagon.
I knew it would never happen again.

01:34:50.530 --> 01:34:54.790
I stepped in there and I just took
it all in. I was fighting and just

01:34:55.810 --> 01:35:01.770
every single moment, every moment,
every single move, I felt it deep down.

01:35:02.970 --> 01:35:06.947
And in my head, I already
knew this was the final run.

01:35:07.030 --> 01:35:10.987
Everything I'd been doing my entire
life, it all came down to this.

01:35:11.070 --> 01:35:14.950
That competitive rush,
I'll never feel that anywhere else.

01:35:15.090 --> 01:35:17.270
I knew deep down this was my last fight.

01:35:18.050 --> 01:35:19.800
- What kind of feelings were those?

01:35:20.350 --> 01:35:23.847
- I've never felt anything like
that again. Those feelings could only be

01:35:23.930 --> 01:35:27.867
experienced right there on that
exact day, that very evening, with

01:35:27.950 --> 01:35:31.727
that opponent inside that cage.
I've never had them before that

01:35:31.810 --> 01:35:35.767
night and never had them since.
And I don't think I'll ever be

01:35:35.850 --> 01:35:37.250
able to feel that way again.

01:35:38.730 --> 01:35:42.267
I think Buvaisar said that these
feelings, standing on the podium,

01:35:42.350 --> 01:35:45.947
becoming an Olympic champion,
you only feel them in that moment when

01:35:46.030 --> 01:35:49.450
they announce you. You step
onto the podium. That's it.

01:35:49.970 --> 01:35:53.747
They announced you. You won.
You leave. That's it. You

01:35:53.830 --> 01:35:57.447
only feel them there. You don't feel them
anywhere else. And athletes live for those

01:35:57.530 --> 01:35:59.990
feelings. They train
their whole lives for them.

01:36:01.450 --> 01:36:05.327
- Do you ever think about that?
That in our lives, if we're lucky, we

01:36:05.410 --> 01:36:10.050
only get maybe one or two moments
like that at that absolute peak.

01:36:10.590 --> 01:36:16.515
- Yes. Yes. Yes. Very rarely.
It's so rare. What is happiness really?

01:36:16.598 --> 01:36:21.707
The way I see it is when you experience
certain feelings for a very short

01:36:21.790 --> 01:36:25.707
time. You can't be constantly happy.
Like you achieve

01:36:25.790 --> 01:36:29.850
something and then you're happy for years.
It just doesn't work that way.

01:36:30.770 --> 01:36:34.387
The Almighty didn't build us that way.
You get there even when you

01:36:34.470 --> 01:36:38.107
become a champion and you
fully feel that moment, you

01:36:38.190 --> 01:36:43.850
win. And then you wake up the next morning
and that's it. Is that all I worked for?

01:36:44.850 --> 01:36:49.430
There's nothing more like that.
You know? Like, can I have seconds?

01:36:50.290 --> 01:36:54.430
You can't have seconds. It's like
in our cafeteria. Can I have seconds?

01:36:56.260 --> 01:37:00.177
So well, you become champion,
you win, then you wake up the next

01:37:00.260 --> 01:37:03.450
day. That's it. Your daily
routine continues. It doesn't end.

01:37:04.480 --> 01:37:08.297
You've already got different things
going on, different problems, other

01:37:08.380 --> 01:37:12.257
tasks now, and you're like,
"It all went by so fast." Then you wake

01:37:12.340 --> 01:37:16.180
up the next day, pack your bags,
head to the airport, fly out,

01:37:16.440 --> 01:37:20.257
land back home, everyone's celebrating.
And just like that, the

01:37:20.340 --> 01:37:25.560
next day everyone's gone. That's it.
Everyone lives their own life. And well...

01:37:27.500 --> 01:37:31.340
But later on, there are
moments, well, you know,

01:37:32.260 --> 01:37:35.720
when you still feel the impact
of that success, let's say.

01:37:37.520 --> 01:37:41.400
Like let's say public recognition,
for example, people's recognition

01:37:41.920 --> 01:37:45.777
and recognition is legacy.
A lot of people get it twisted when

01:37:45.860 --> 01:37:51.470
we start talking about legacy. What even
is a legacy? What does legacy mean, right?

01:37:52.500 --> 01:37:56.417
For me personally,
it is public recognition. Like

01:37:56.500 --> 01:38:00.350
when people come up to you, like parents
come up with their kid and they say,

01:38:00.830 --> 01:38:04.697
"You know, you inspire our son to get
into sports. You're a real role model

01:38:04.780 --> 01:38:09.160
for him." And in that exact
moment, it's like you just--

01:38:10.280 --> 01:38:13.060
you start to realize that
none of this was in vain.

01:38:14.000 --> 01:38:17.600
But here's the thing. Does everyone
approach every champion like that?

01:38:17.920 --> 01:38:21.740
Every successful person?
Do people even come up to them at all?

01:38:22.040 --> 01:38:24.990
That's the question.
There are people who became champions.

01:38:26.280 --> 01:38:29.080
There are people who rose
to the top of their field,

01:38:30.100 --> 01:38:32.480
but they just don't inspire anyone.

01:38:33.660 --> 01:38:37.217
And well, people look at you
like, "Yeah, you were a

01:38:37.300 --> 01:38:39.950
champion, you know,
but nobody wants to be like you."

01:38:41.400 --> 01:38:45.960
There are so many people like
that who achieve success, but they,

01:38:47.900 --> 01:38:53.260
they don't inspire the younger
generation because the youth,

01:38:53.700 --> 01:38:57.860
they look at you and they just
don't see you as a good person.

01:38:59.060 --> 01:39:03.900
And looking at it that way, sports,
it's such a double-edged sword.

01:39:06.020 --> 01:39:08.820
- They lost themselves in it
when they became champions.

01:39:09.660 --> 01:39:11.560
Or maybe they never truly were.

01:39:13.520 --> 01:39:17.920
If we can, I want to talk about MMA
and football in that same context.

01:39:18.760 --> 01:39:23.640
Let's start with MMA. Who do you think
are the greatest fighters of all time?

01:39:24.480 --> 01:39:31.480
You said you have a few favorites. Shogun,
George St-Pierre, and Fedor Emelianenko.

01:39:33.440 --> 01:39:37.197
Let's talk about those fighters and maybe
others who interest you. They all

01:39:37.280 --> 01:39:41.220
had different distinct styles.
So tell me why Shogun.

01:39:41.420 --> 01:39:45.317
You've always said that he was important
to you as a fighter, and naturally

01:39:45.400 --> 01:39:49.077
he had legendary moments
in Pride in two thousand and five.

01:39:49.160 --> 01:39:51.340
- His soccer kick. - Yes, that's right.

01:39:51.700 --> 01:39:55.660
- Well, Shogun Rua, when I was fifteen,

01:39:55.860 --> 01:39:59.777
sixteen years old, he was the Pride
champion. At that time, for

01:39:59.860 --> 01:40:03.697
me, it was the best organization
in the world. The best fighters in the

01:40:03.780 --> 01:40:07.180
world competed there.
Fedor, Cro Cop, Shogun,

01:40:07.380 --> 01:40:10.997
Wanderlei Silva,
Anderson Silva. Man, they had

01:40:11.080 --> 01:40:14.697
everybody. Overeem,
Dan Henderson, the Nogueira

01:40:14.780 --> 01:40:18.717
brothers, the Emelianenko brothers.
They were the best at

01:40:18.800 --> 01:40:22.557
that time for me and honestly
for MMA as a whole. And

01:40:22.640 --> 01:40:25.699
right there in second
place, in my opinion,

01:40:25.783 --> 01:40:28.560
shining right behind Fedor was Shogun.

01:40:29.700 --> 01:40:33.477
And the way he fights, no matter how
they took him down, he'd get right back

01:40:33.560 --> 01:40:37.337
up. They couldn't do a thing to him.
Yeah, his wrestling was lacking, but

01:40:37.420 --> 01:40:40.720
his striking, Thai clinch, punches, kicks,

01:40:41.060 --> 01:40:44.657
knees. When he landed those
soccer kicks, well, he really

01:40:44.740 --> 01:40:51.440
appealed to me as a fighter. Very calm,
careful, very emotionally restrained and,

01:40:52.680 --> 01:40:56.220
and his fight style. His style
was actually at a very high level.

01:40:56.840 --> 01:40:59.500
The way he fought,
no other fighter ever did.

01:41:00.480 --> 01:41:04.117
At that time, he really
impressed me. Then he

01:41:04.200 --> 01:41:08.460
crossed over to the UFC
and became the UFC champion.

01:41:11.240 --> 01:41:14.760
And UFC fights and the Pride
fights at that time,

01:41:15.420 --> 01:41:18.080
I didn't have a computer,
internet, none of that.

01:41:19.500 --> 01:41:23.420
I remember there was this video
rental place. We'd grab

01:41:23.540 --> 01:41:27.420
tapes and watch all these
fights with my father.

01:41:29.360 --> 01:41:33.017
Mauricio Shogun Rua to me
was like the gold standard of a

01:41:33.100 --> 01:41:40.100
fighter back then. I'd say right
alongside Fedor and George St-Pierre.

01:41:40.440 --> 01:41:43.173
- And by the way, when you watched
the fights with your father,

01:41:43.256 --> 01:41:47.020
did you watch them for fun
or analyze them too?

01:41:47.730 --> 01:41:51.520
- Mostly we analyzed them.
My father always loved to analyze fights.

01:41:52.140 --> 01:41:55.730
We'd sit like this and he'd
say this, this, chokes,

01:41:56.040 --> 01:41:59.100
striking, wrestling.
We were constantly analyzing.

01:42:00.140 --> 01:42:03.717
There was a fight in two thousand
and six or two thousand and

01:42:03.800 --> 01:42:07.300
seven. I don't even
remember the exact year.

01:42:07.720 --> 01:42:11.700
Approximately around that time when
George St-Pierre fought Sean Sherk.

01:42:12.460 --> 01:42:15.000
We even re-watched that
fight a couple of times.

01:42:16.320 --> 01:42:18.820
Then George St-Pierre fought B.J. Penn,

01:42:19.960 --> 01:42:23.677
the second fight, I think, after
the fourth round when there was a

01:42:23.760 --> 01:42:27.480
stoppage. Then, well,
there were many, many fights

01:42:27.720 --> 01:42:31.300
and my father actually
admired the fighting

01:42:31.460 --> 01:42:34.080
style, the fighting
style of George St-Pierre.

01:42:35.200 --> 01:42:38.937
He really impressed us.
And my father, my father always

01:42:39.020 --> 01:42:46.020
emphasized his timing of takedowns after
striking how he closed the distance. Um,

01:42:47.140 --> 01:42:51.077
and honestly, my whole,
you know, like teenage conscious

01:42:51.160 --> 01:42:54.837
years growing up,
like my formative years transitioning

01:42:54.920 --> 01:42:57.720
into an adult, it was all tied to

01:42:58.940 --> 01:43:02.620
tied to Pride in its prime.
And after the UFC bought

01:43:02.760 --> 01:43:06.717
Pride and those fighters
crossed over, that whole boom

01:43:06.800 --> 01:43:11.440
in 2006, '7, '8 and '9,
the rise of the UFC,

01:43:12.480 --> 01:43:16.280
I remember that era so vividly.
My father and I re-watched so

01:43:16.420 --> 01:43:18.060
many of those UFC fights.

01:43:19.480 --> 01:43:23.037
- Well, I have to ask about Fedor.
What can you say about him? He had some

01:43:23.120 --> 01:43:27.940
legendary fights. He beat Cro
Cop, Big Nog, Mark Coleman.

01:43:28.720 --> 01:43:32.620
- Yeah, and Kevin Randleman.
And then he had those

01:43:32.720 --> 01:43:36.440
legendary fights with the
Japanese fighters who were big

01:43:36.580 --> 01:43:40.517
stars over there. Man, I loved it.
Honestly, he inspired

01:43:40.600 --> 01:43:44.480
me just by the fact that he
was from Russia and he was a Sambo

01:43:44.600 --> 01:43:49.320
fighter. He was closer to our school
of training, Sambo, combat Sambo.

01:43:50.920 --> 01:43:56.637
And there was this moment
back in 2004, the

01:43:56.720 --> 01:44:00.040
Dagestan Combat Sambo Championship.
Can you imagine?

01:44:00.420 --> 01:44:05.784
2004, the Dagestan Combat Sambo
Championship, and Fedor showed up.

01:44:05.867 --> 01:44:08.097
He showed up. - He came.

01:44:08.180 --> 01:44:11.897
- To compete in the Dagestan Open
Combat Sambo Championship while

01:44:11.980 --> 01:44:16.400
being the reigning Pride champion.
I was 15 years old at the time.

01:44:17.960 --> 01:44:21.757
I was right there in the venue.
My father actually invited him. He

01:44:21.840 --> 01:44:25.580
was sending out invitations
to different schools back then. It was

01:44:25.680 --> 01:44:31.460
Stary Oskol where he used to train.
Fedor's coaches were sent an invitation.

01:44:32.680 --> 01:44:36.630
He came with his brother, Alexander.
They both made it to the finals back then.

01:44:37.160 --> 01:44:40.680
I just remember $5,000, $3,000, $1,000,

01:44:41.020 --> 01:44:44.620
first, second, third place.
At heavyweight, they gave a car.

01:44:45.920 --> 01:44:49.720
When the two brothers arrived,
they beat everyone to get to the finals.

01:44:50.100 --> 01:44:53.737
They didn't fight each other.
One of them took first place. That was

01:44:53.820 --> 01:44:57.620
Fedor. Alexander took second place.
I remember back then

01:44:57.940 --> 01:45:01.158
when he was warming up, I was standing
next to him while he warmed up.

01:45:01.241 --> 01:45:05.430
It was this building, you know,
a venue that fits maybe 1,500 people,

01:45:05.820 --> 01:45:09.477
and over there was this partition,
like a wall, and everyone was

01:45:09.560 --> 01:45:11.690
warming up behind that wall.
At that time, well,

01:45:11.774 --> 01:45:13.437
practically very few people even knew

01:45:13.520 --> 01:45:17.140
who Fedor was, but I knew
Fedor. I knew who he was,

01:45:17.510 --> 01:45:21.280
that he was the Pride champion.
At that time, he beat Nogueira, beat

01:45:21.380 --> 01:45:25.297
Mark Coleman, beat Randleman.
This was before his championship fight

01:45:25.380 --> 01:45:28.857
against Cro Cop. I would come over
and just sit there watching how

01:45:28.940 --> 01:45:32.400
he warmed up, what he did.
I just remember very well,

01:45:33.180 --> 01:45:36.680
I don't know, maybe Fedor will
see this podcast. He had a thermos.

01:45:37.860 --> 01:45:41.517
He had a thermos, and he was just
drinking tea. And I remember he

01:45:41.600 --> 01:45:45.577
fought Ibragim Magomedov.
He was also a legendary fighter of

01:45:45.660 --> 01:45:48.120
ours, a heavyweight who
fought in Pride, too.

01:45:49.560 --> 01:45:53.497
He fought against him. It was either
his first or second fight, and he was

01:45:53.580 --> 01:45:57.417
warming up incredibly well.
I remember how he was warming up

01:45:57.500 --> 01:46:01.380
his nose and his ears.
I watched him, and it was unusual for me

01:46:01.480 --> 01:46:05.120
at that time. I never warmed up
my nose and ears. I just remember--

01:46:05.440 --> 01:46:09.297
I just remember how Fedor was really
working on his nose, his ears, his

01:46:09.380 --> 01:46:13.187
whole face. And he went,
fought, came back.

01:46:13.270 --> 01:46:17.217
This was in Makhachkala 2004.
It's the same as a

01:46:17.300 --> 01:46:20.440
UFC champion now coming
and fighting at the

01:46:20.860 --> 01:46:24.737
Dagestan Combat Sambo Championship.
Can you imagine that? Back then, it

01:46:24.820 --> 01:46:28.537
was the best heavyweight organization
in the world. He comes there and

01:46:28.620 --> 01:46:33.120
fights. So he finished a fight, goes back,
and he had this big thermos with him.

01:46:34.100 --> 01:46:36.250
His team was sitting
separately over there.

01:46:37.700 --> 01:46:41.300
He was drinking tea.
He just fought, walked back,

01:46:41.520 --> 01:46:44.737
poured some tea, and drank it.
He had something to snack on with it,

01:46:44.820 --> 01:46:45.457
maybe honey or

01:46:45.540 --> 01:46:49.190
something. I just don't remember.
And I was, "Wow, Fedor is right here."

01:46:49.860 --> 01:46:53.737
For me, that was just such a, you know,
great source of motivation back

01:46:53.820 --> 01:46:57.557
then. It's really hard
to put those emotions into

01:46:57.640 --> 01:47:01.680
words. By the way, maybe you could
ask him about that on the podcast.

01:47:01.920 --> 01:47:02.920
- About the thermos?

01:47:03.290 --> 01:47:08.270
- No, no. About the tea. What was in it?
Thyme? Mint? What did he put in there?

01:47:09.520 --> 01:47:12.360
- Uh, well, I would love
to talk to him on this podcast,

01:47:13.260 --> 01:47:16.100
but I think he rarely does interviews.

01:47:17.980 --> 01:47:20.980
- I think you can reach him.
I can help you.

01:47:22.040 --> 01:47:23.497
- Well, if you could put
in a good word for me.

01:47:23.580 --> 01:47:27.680
- Yeah, of course. I think it would
be interesting for people to hear him.

01:47:28.000 --> 01:47:34.660
- Absolutely. But psychologically,
he's kind of like you in a way.

01:47:35.820 --> 01:47:36.653
- You mean calm?

01:47:37.320 --> 01:47:39.920
- Yeah. Yes, that calmness.

01:47:40.880 --> 01:47:46.500
You see the Pride era, those huge
fights, those really tough matchups,

01:47:47.380 --> 01:47:49.540
and still he always stayed calm.

01:47:50.080 --> 01:47:50.913
- It's his aura.

01:47:51.640 --> 01:47:56.137
- Yeah? - I don't know about others,
but for me, that was his aura. The fact

01:47:56.220 --> 01:48:00.077
that he'd come out with such a calm,
cool-headed look and knock

01:48:00.160 --> 01:48:03.820
out giants, strong fighters
at that time, right?

01:48:04.980 --> 01:48:09.720
You know, we used to joke
about his face, that he,

01:48:11.220 --> 01:48:16.420
kind of looks like a kindergarten teacher,
you know? And then he goes out there and

01:48:17.620 --> 01:48:19.680
knocks out absolute giants.

01:48:20.900 --> 01:48:24.717
And he was like that. Both before
and after the fight, he never showed

01:48:24.800 --> 01:48:30.360
much emotion. But I think we're a little
different in that regard. I think Fedor,

01:48:31.280 --> 01:48:35.400
by temperament, is calmer than I am.
That's my impression.

01:48:36.340 --> 01:48:42.717
But with that cold-blooded calmness
of his, I think he got to a lot of people

01:48:42.800 --> 01:48:43.633
mentally.

01:48:45.000 --> 01:48:50.497
- It's like something's happening inside
both of you, like something's boiling

01:48:50.580 --> 01:48:53.850
inside. So when we look at your face-

01:48:54.740 --> 01:48:58.477
- Of course it's boiling.
What do you think? You know what? It's

01:48:58.560 --> 01:49:02.497
one thing when it's boiling inside
and you show it, but there are

01:49:02.580 --> 01:49:04.330
some who can't hide their feelings.

01:49:05.900 --> 01:49:09.777
But it's a different thing when it's
boiling inside and on the surface you stay

01:49:09.860 --> 01:49:13.440
cold, cold-blooded, calm,
and you can handle all these different

01:49:13.540 --> 01:49:17.337
emotions that hit you at the same time.
There are a lot of them, and they

01:49:17.420 --> 01:49:21.280
all hit differently.
When you compete, what makes a

01:49:21.440 --> 01:49:25.357
fighter, an athlete at the
highest level so unique is

01:49:25.440 --> 01:49:29.200
that so many different
emotions hit you at the same

01:49:29.320 --> 01:49:33.257
time. Fear, nerves,
the fact that people are

01:49:33.340 --> 01:49:38.240
watching you, the thought that you
might perform badly, that you might

01:49:39.220 --> 01:49:42.800
not show what you've trained for,
that you might mess it up,

01:49:43.320 --> 01:49:46.977
that you might,
I don't know, fall. So much

01:49:47.060 --> 01:49:52.580
enters your head, and you can put each
emotion where it belongs. So, you know,

01:49:53.580 --> 01:49:57.517
if all of that gets inside
your head and turns into chaos, you

01:49:57.600 --> 01:50:00.797
won't be able to handle it
emotionally, but you stay

01:50:00.880 --> 01:50:04.617
cold-blooded.
And you know that if you don't

01:50:04.700 --> 01:50:08.477
handle these emotions
that are coming at you, if you

01:50:08.560 --> 01:50:12.417
don't handle this pressure,
then it will be difficult for you to

01:50:12.500 --> 01:50:16.040
compete because the main competition
is against yourself first.

01:50:16.840 --> 01:50:20.200
You fight yourself,
you beat yourself, and only

01:50:20.320 --> 01:50:23.740
then do you actually start
competing with your opponent.

01:50:24.440 --> 01:50:27.760
So I think it happens to everyone,
not just him or me.

01:50:28.560 --> 01:50:31.440
The big difference here
is how much you can control it.

01:50:32.860 --> 01:50:34.640
- Fedor himself famously said,

01:50:35.470 --> 01:50:39.520
"The only person who can defeat me is me.
The only person who can beat me is me."

01:50:40.080 --> 01:50:44.017
- He was talking about that fight with
yourself, I'm sure. Because if you lose

01:50:44.100 --> 01:50:47.260
to yourself, then you'll lose
to your opponent very easily.

01:50:48.920 --> 01:50:51.170
- There's an interesting
thing I came across.

01:50:52.060 --> 01:50:55.940
Adam Saitiev said that high-level
athletes often make a mistake,

01:50:57.020 --> 01:51:01.060
and what they do wrong
is that when they feel fear,

01:51:02.040 --> 01:51:07.760
they tend to ignore it. He believes
that you have to confront that fear

01:51:08.620 --> 01:51:09.453
and overcome it.

01:51:10.580 --> 01:51:14.400
- Yes. Psychologists talk
about how to work through those

01:51:14.520 --> 01:51:21.400
thoughts when they arise. You know,
when fear comes up and you feel it, that's

01:51:21.520 --> 01:51:26.540
absolutely normal.
It's what the Almighty put in us.

01:51:27.350 --> 01:51:31.320
People get scared, people
get cold, people feel pain,

01:51:31.640 --> 01:51:35.597
people get hungry. These are
things that are inside all of

01:51:35.680 --> 01:51:39.140
us. The real question
is how you deal with them,

01:51:39.580 --> 01:51:41.900
how you overcome them within yourself.

01:51:42.900 --> 01:51:46.807
100% you can't ignore it, and you
must work through it. You have to

01:51:46.890 --> 01:51:50.097
answer the questions, "Why did
this happen? Could I do it this way

01:51:50.180 --> 01:51:54.740
instead?" And this comes only
with experience, only with experience.

01:51:56.560 --> 01:52:00.820
And the more you compete, you know, the
more you train and the more you face it.

01:52:02.480 --> 01:52:05.820
Some people actually
try to avoid that moment.

01:52:06.380 --> 01:52:12.400
But the more you face it, the better
and better you'll become each time.

01:52:14.040 --> 01:52:17.997
It's the same with athletes.
They get nervous. That's what

01:52:18.080 --> 01:52:21.840
we call the jitters, right?
At first, whenever someone competes,

01:52:22.140 --> 01:52:26.780
they get the jitters. But when you
keep competing over and over again,

01:52:26.863 --> 01:52:31.980
you gradually learn how to channel
those nerves in the right direction.

01:52:33.100 --> 01:52:34.740
Then it gets easier for you.

01:52:35.700 --> 01:52:39.317
And in order to get there,
you have to compete. And what is

01:52:39.400 --> 01:52:43.057
competition? You meet this
fear face to face. You don't

01:52:43.140 --> 01:52:47.240
avoid it. A lot of guys are
staying away from competitions.

01:52:48.180 --> 01:52:51.937
When they're young, they have this
tension, this self-consciousness, this

01:52:52.020 --> 01:52:55.497
fear, the jitters.
They're nervous. They can't sleep at

01:52:55.580 --> 01:52:58.240
night. You have to go
through all of that yourself.

01:52:59.320 --> 01:53:03.137
Nobody can do it for you.
A coach can train you. A coach can teach

01:53:03.220 --> 01:53:07.300
you. But all he can say is,
"Practice, practice, practice."

01:53:08.130 --> 01:53:13.800
Then there's you, alone with your
own feelings. When you lie down,

01:53:14.360 --> 01:53:18.257
when you wake up, when you walk,
when you're by yourself, when

01:53:18.340 --> 01:53:22.257
you eat, there are so many
moments when a person has to go

01:53:22.340 --> 01:53:29.340
through all of this on his own. And when
you have to go through this over and over

01:53:29.480 --> 01:53:33.337
again, some people back away.
They don't want

01:53:33.420 --> 01:53:36.560
to face it. And what do you need for that?

01:53:37.410 --> 01:53:41.157
Patience. You have to come
and endure it and go

01:53:41.240 --> 01:53:45.077
through all of it, through your skin,
through your muscles, through

01:53:45.160 --> 01:53:48.977
your mind. You must let all
of this pass through you and overcome

01:53:49.060 --> 01:53:52.240
it. And each time you'll get better at it.

01:53:54.440 --> 01:53:57.717
- A good example of that is the
third person you mentioned, George

01:53:57.800 --> 01:54:00.800
St-Pierre, who by the
way sends his regards.

01:54:01.680 --> 01:54:05.437
I train with him a lot, and he has
a very deep respect for you. But

01:54:05.520 --> 01:54:08.794
he didn't give me much good advice because
when I told him I was going to train

01:54:08.878 --> 01:54:13.400
with you, he told me...
What did he say? He texted me, "If you

01:54:13.520 --> 01:54:15.300
die, you die." That's what he said.

01:54:17.060 --> 01:54:18.610
- Good advice. He's a wise man.

01:54:19.460 --> 01:54:21.520
- Didn't support me and said, "Say hi."

01:54:21.920 --> 01:54:23.137
- Tell him I say hi, too.

01:54:23.220 --> 01:54:26.980
- As we were talking about,
he himself has spoken about this,

01:54:28.670 --> 01:54:33.800
that he was afraid and always felt
fear before every single fight.

01:54:34.900 --> 01:54:39.680
That's interesting. One of the greatest
fighters- - In history, yeah.

01:54:40.010 --> 01:54:41.260
- And even he feels fear.

01:54:41.780 --> 01:54:45.260
- He's not afraid to admit it.
Everybody has fear.

01:54:45.580 --> 01:54:50.580
Everybody gets afraid. But I don't
know how big that fear was for him.

01:54:51.520 --> 01:54:55.290
I really don't know.
We never discussed it. But

01:54:55.420 --> 01:55:01.120
I've watched a lot of his interviews,
his fights, and his training camps.

01:55:02.120 --> 01:55:06.080
The way he analyzed his past
fights and all that, the way

01:55:06.200 --> 01:55:10.047
I see it, he's a very sensitive person.
There are people like that

01:55:10.130 --> 01:55:13.827
too. Some guys take all
of this very lightly. Like,

01:55:13.910 --> 01:55:17.830
"Okay, we fight tomorrow.
We'll see who my opponent is

01:55:18.030 --> 01:55:21.490
and how he shows up, right?"
But there are others who,

01:55:22.510 --> 01:55:25.610
who find it very difficult
to handle psychologically.

01:55:26.530 --> 01:55:32.430
But the Almighty gave me this kind of
calmness. Sometimes I'd get to the arena,

01:55:33.510 --> 01:55:38.450
and they bring you in four hours before
the fight. They have to weigh you,

01:55:39.430 --> 01:55:43.190
they have to do doping control,
and they have to tape you

01:55:43.330 --> 01:55:46.810
up. There are so many
athletic commission procedures.

01:55:47.390 --> 01:55:49.120
Every state has different rules,

01:55:50.190 --> 01:55:53.967
how they bring you into the arena
and all that. Sometimes I'd

01:55:54.050 --> 01:55:57.947
get there four hours early and think,
"What am I supposed to do?"

01:55:58.030 --> 01:56:01.920
So I make myself a little
bed and say, "Please,

01:56:02.050 --> 01:56:06.010
Keep it quiet." I would lie down.
I could sleep there for an

01:56:06.110 --> 01:56:09.827
hour, maybe an hour and a half.
That's it. Wake up, warm up, and

01:56:09.910 --> 01:56:13.667
then I could go out and fight.
And some guys, they don't

01:56:13.750 --> 01:56:15.550
sleep for two days before the fight.

01:56:16.690 --> 01:56:20.287
Believe me, there are fighters
who don't sleep the night before a

01:56:20.370 --> 01:56:24.067
fight, and it's very hard
on them. It's not really

01:56:24.150 --> 01:56:27.890
fear. It's hard to describe with just

01:56:28.010 --> 01:56:31.587
one emotion. It's too many
emotions that come over a

01:56:31.670 --> 01:56:38.150
person, and they can't fall asleep.
It's panic, it's fear, it's worry, it's

01:56:38.250 --> 01:56:42.150
nervousness, it's the jitters.
All of that builds up,

01:56:42.530 --> 01:56:46.110
and the person just can't
fall asleep. So in that regard,

01:56:47.770 --> 01:56:53.070
the Almighty gave me a little more
calmness than others. I had, you know,

01:56:53.970 --> 01:56:56.750
such a cool head and calmness
before the fights.

01:56:57.730 --> 01:57:01.950
- Now you're in this new
position as a leader,

01:57:02.910 --> 01:57:06.727
and you're looking at all these
athletes, these young guys who

01:57:06.810 --> 01:57:08.860
are already at the very top of the world.

01:57:09.630 --> 01:57:12.380
And I think they're all very
different from one another

01:57:13.070 --> 01:57:19.780
psychologically, physically,
and stylistically. What can you say as a

01:57:19.910 --> 01:57:23.667
coach? I know you're not a coach,
but as a leader, how do you figure

01:57:23.750 --> 01:57:29.510
out what each person needs?
Like now we were watching Umar prepare.

01:57:30.130 --> 01:57:32.280
That each person needs
something different.

01:57:32.550 --> 01:57:36.450
- Yes, everyone is different.
Different styles, different

01:57:36.550 --> 01:57:39.930
mentalities, different mindsets, different

01:57:40.030 --> 01:57:43.690
approaches to fight week
and to preparation as a whole.

01:57:44.410 --> 01:57:48.127
But you have to adapt to all of it.
Here, you can't

01:57:48.210 --> 01:57:52.190
just take one approach.
Let's say we take my approach

01:57:53.110 --> 01:57:58.170
and apply it to everyone
else, to Usman, Islam,

01:57:59.000 --> 01:58:01.650
and Umar. It doesn't work like that.

01:58:02.650 --> 01:58:06.527
Everyone needs their own approach.
I knew them since they were

01:58:06.610 --> 01:58:10.427
nobody, and I know them now
when they are the best. So you

01:58:10.510 --> 01:58:14.287
have to treat each one differently.
I'm very lucky to have Javier

01:58:14.370 --> 01:58:18.130
Mendez. He's been by my side since 2012.

01:58:18.690 --> 01:58:22.490
And when I became a coach
after I finished my career,

01:58:22.750 --> 01:58:26.367
he was there with me as a coach.
I switched from being a

01:58:26.450 --> 01:58:30.290
fighter to a coaching role.
My father was no longer with us.

01:58:30.850 --> 01:58:34.567
And together with Javier Mendez,
we've been guiding them for

01:58:34.650 --> 01:58:39.630
these last six years.
And his experience helps me tremendously

01:58:40.470 --> 01:58:43.570
because there is no coach, no MMA coach

01:58:44.450 --> 01:58:47.707
with the kind of results
Javier Mendez has. You

01:58:47.790 --> 01:58:50.950
know? So many champions, double champions,

01:58:51.390 --> 01:58:55.410
UFC fighters. So many people
have trained under him,

01:58:56.390 --> 01:58:59.210
from Frank Shamrock all
the way to Islam Makhachev.

01:59:00.770 --> 01:59:02.860
So many fighters have trained under him,

01:59:03.670 --> 01:59:07.420
which makes things very easy
for me because I have Javier

01:59:07.530 --> 01:59:11.710
Mendez by my side, and he can
help me with so many things.

01:59:12.390 --> 01:59:16.187
- What do you think is the secret
behind Javier's genius? Why is he

01:59:16.270 --> 01:59:18.990
such a great coach for so
many different athletes?

01:59:21.090 --> 01:59:24.630
- It's the mental side of things.
I'm not gonna say he's one of the

01:59:25.350 --> 01:59:29.017
best at holding pads
or anything like that, but

01:59:29.100 --> 01:59:32.997
his understanding of MMA
itself, his approach

01:59:33.080 --> 01:59:36.390
to training camp,
to the whole preparation process,

01:59:37.110 --> 01:59:41.007
and the amount of attention
he pays to sparring

01:59:41.090 --> 01:59:44.807
inside the cage. I'm not talking
about those sparring sessions

01:59:44.890 --> 01:59:48.767
with 50 people in the gym
and everyone is sparring with each

01:59:48.850 --> 01:59:52.650
other. For example, when I
was preparing for a five-round fight,

01:59:53.230 --> 01:59:56.630
he would always bring in two
or three high-level opponents,

01:59:56.970 --> 01:59:59.870
constantly rotating
in fresh sparring partners.

02:00:00.440 --> 02:00:02.027
- And he would watch and analyze.

02:00:02.110 --> 02:00:05.930
- I don't remember him ever missing
a single sparring session since

02:00:06.070 --> 02:00:12.050
2012. Can you imagine? 14 years have gone
by, and right now we're in training camp.

02:00:13.810 --> 02:00:17.527
He's there for every training
session, morning and evening.

02:00:17.610 --> 02:00:21.290
He's at every sparring session,
watching everyone, coaching them,

02:00:21.450 --> 02:00:25.347
giving advice, guiding them.
He's incredibly dedicated to what he

02:00:25.430 --> 02:00:29.330
does. He's either all
in or he steps away completely.

02:00:31.170 --> 02:00:34.310
He never shows up and gives only 50%.

02:00:35.250 --> 02:00:38.990
I remember one situation.
Abubakar was getting ready to

02:00:39.090 --> 02:00:42.967
fight in WSOF, and I had
another student fighting there

02:00:43.050 --> 02:00:46.500
as well. Abubakar went through
the entire preparation with us,

02:00:47.090 --> 02:00:51.030
but the other guy didn't. When we
got there, I told the coach, "Coach,

02:00:51.210 --> 02:00:54.870
can you work his corner with me too?"
He said, "You know, Khabib,

02:00:55.370 --> 02:00:59.067
I haven't seen his preparation.
I don't know what he's capable of. He

02:00:59.150 --> 02:01:02.630
didn't train under me.
But since you're asking, I'll do it.

02:01:03.110 --> 02:01:04.850
But for the future, remember,

02:01:05.710 --> 02:01:09.407
I don't really like to corner
guys I haven't prepared." I

02:01:09.490 --> 02:01:12.840
didn't understand him then,
but now I do. This was

02:01:12.970 --> 02:01:19.170
2016 or maybe 2017. I don't want
to be wrong. And now I understand.

02:01:20.310 --> 02:01:24.290
Now when people ask me,
I'm like, "I didn't prepare you.

02:01:24.450 --> 02:01:26.050
I don't know how ready you are."

02:01:27.030 --> 02:01:30.987
I'm not ready to go in there
and give all my energy to someone who

02:01:31.070 --> 02:01:32.620
didn't go through camp with me.

02:01:34.070 --> 02:01:37.987
Now I understand that.
At that time, I told the coach, "Can

02:01:38.070 --> 02:01:41.430
you come out and corner him with me?"
He said, "No problem."

02:01:42.610 --> 02:01:46.507
We went out there,
Abubakar won his fight, and the

02:01:46.590 --> 02:01:51.810
other guy's fight ended in a draw.
But that's not really what I'm getting at.

02:01:53.030 --> 02:01:56.970
I've come to the point where if I
haven't trained someone for two, three,

02:01:57.110 --> 02:02:01.067
or four months, I don't like
to corner them because they didn't

02:02:01.150 --> 02:02:04.347
go through a full training camp,
and I don't know how they'll

02:02:04.430 --> 02:02:07.650
respond in the third,
fourth, or fifth round.

02:02:09.230 --> 02:02:12.987
I don't know how he prepared.
I don't know how ready he is to go

02:02:13.070 --> 02:02:16.970
into those deep waters.
That's why I try not to corner

02:02:17.070 --> 02:02:19.650
just anyone. I learned that from Javier.

02:02:20.950 --> 02:02:23.700
- So you need to know he can
go into those deep waters.

02:02:24.710 --> 02:02:29.110
- How deep he can go. I need
to know exactly what he's capable of.

02:02:30.530 --> 02:02:34.230
- What can you say about one of the
greatest fighters and athletes ever,

02:02:34.830 --> 02:02:37.910
Daniel DC Cormier, who you train with?

02:02:39.230 --> 02:02:43.280
You guys joke around all the time, so it's
easy to forget how great he really is.

02:02:43.590 --> 02:02:48.190
What can you say about him as a training
partner, as a coach, as a person?

02:02:48.870 --> 02:02:55.870
- When we talk about DC, we have to go
back to 2004, 2008. He was a two-time

02:02:56.190 --> 02:03:00.140
Olympian. He represented
Team USA at the Olympic Games,

02:03:00.710 --> 02:03:06.330
and that carries a lot of weight in this
sport, especially in the 96-kilo division.

02:03:07.990 --> 02:03:11.630
And he is a two-time Olympian.
Then he transitioned to

02:03:11.730 --> 02:03:15.027
MMA, won a few fights
on the regional scene, went

02:03:15.110 --> 02:03:18.887
to Strikeforce, won fights there.
They put him into the Grand

02:03:18.970 --> 02:03:22.251
Prix. He won the Grand Prix,
became heavyweight champion,

02:03:22.334 --> 02:03:23.810
and then went to the UFC.

02:03:24.790 --> 02:03:28.340
When he moved to the UFC,
he cut down to 205 pounds

02:03:28.850 --> 02:03:32.027
to make room for Cain
Velasquez because they were best

02:03:32.110 --> 02:03:34.550
friends. Cain was the
heavyweight champion.

02:03:35.690 --> 02:03:39.090
So he moved to 205,
and they both became champions,

02:03:39.710 --> 02:03:42.330
one at light heavyweight
and one at heavyweight.

02:03:43.250 --> 02:03:47.770
Later, when Cain lost the title,
he moved to heavyweight and won there too.

02:03:48.590 --> 02:03:51.610
He's one of the most unique
athletes who has ever lived.

02:03:52.930 --> 02:03:56.820
How many athletes do you know who
competed at the World Championships,

02:03:57.290 --> 02:04:00.667
at the Olympic Games
in freestyle wrestling, then

02:04:00.750 --> 02:04:04.350
transitioned to MMA and became
Strikeforce champion,

02:04:04.990 --> 02:04:09.190
UFC light heavyweight champion,
and UFC heavyweight champion?

02:04:10.570 --> 02:04:14.150
And he's also remembered
for his rivalry with one of the

02:04:14.310 --> 02:04:18.207
greatest, if not the greatest,
Jon Jones. But

02:04:18.290 --> 02:04:22.630
by the time he fought Jon Jones,
he was no longer at his peak.

02:04:23.510 --> 02:04:30.510
I think he was already pushing 40.
Even though we have this friendly, joking

02:04:31.230 --> 02:04:37.390
relationship because he's such a fun,
interesting guy, as an athlete though,

02:04:38.490 --> 02:04:41.090
he's truly one of a kind.

02:04:41.870 --> 02:04:44.550
- As a commentator too,
he's very good with words.

02:04:45.910 --> 02:04:49.827
- Educated, well-mannered, strong.

02:04:49.910 --> 02:04:56.390
He has so many great qualities.
Daniel Cormier is one of those people

02:04:58.090 --> 02:05:00.950
who I think can truly inspire others.

02:05:02.350 --> 02:05:07.710
- So who usually wins when
you guys wrestle? You or DC?

02:05:08.790 --> 02:05:12.670
- Well, he's got a few years on me.
But back in my prime, when

02:05:12.790 --> 02:05:16.270
I was competing at lightweight,
I weighed around 84,

02:05:16.510 --> 02:05:23.510
85, maybe 86 kilos. DC was always
around 107, 110. Those are completely

02:05:24.090 --> 02:05:27.890
different weight classes.
DC was better at wrestling and

02:05:28.010 --> 02:05:31.150
as an Olympian too, all joking aside.

02:05:32.090 --> 02:05:32.923
- So you feel—

02:05:33.350 --> 02:05:37.240
- Back then it was really tough,
of course, but now it's different. Now

02:05:37.350 --> 02:05:41.247
I can go after him.
But I learned so much from

02:05:41.330 --> 02:05:44.987
Cormier. Honestly, so much. As a person, a

02:05:45.070 --> 02:05:48.667
wrestler, and a fighter.
You know, we spent our best years

02:05:48.750 --> 02:05:52.950
together at AKA from 2012 to 2020.

02:05:54.610 --> 02:05:58.330
We've shared so many memories
and moments together as well.

02:05:59.910 --> 02:06:03.287
- I just think it's a shame that people
don't talk about him as one of the top

02:06:03.371 --> 02:06:04.204
five, top 10.

02:06:04.810 --> 02:06:08.047
- Well, top 10 for sure.
One of the top 10 greatest, no question.

02:06:08.130 --> 02:06:10.390
- Absolutely. - Yeah,
I definitely think so.

02:06:10.490 --> 02:06:13.736
- It's a shame, but you see this
in football and in other sports too.

02:06:13.819 --> 02:06:18.170
One rivalry can overshadow an entire
legacy. For DC, it's Jon Jones.

02:06:18.690 --> 02:06:21.330
- Well, Jon Jones was the better athlete.

02:06:22.250 --> 02:06:26.027
There's no doubt about that.
But DC was right there with

02:06:26.110 --> 02:06:31.350
him. Yes, Jon Jones won,
but DC gave him a real fight.

02:06:32.850 --> 02:06:38.490
He was that very person, you know,
who actually made Jon Jones train harder.

02:06:39.750 --> 02:06:43.667
People shouldn't forget that.
I'm sure Jon Jones prepared for

02:06:43.750 --> 02:06:47.570
that fight like it was the
hardest fight of his life.

02:06:49.150 --> 02:06:52.450
- Well, we've talked about
different athletes, about Umar,

02:06:53.150 --> 02:06:56.967
but now let's talk about Islam
Makhachev, one of your closest

02:06:57.050 --> 02:07:00.967
brothers, who's at the very
top of the world. You've known

02:07:01.050 --> 02:07:04.410
each other. You've trained
together for more than 20 years.

02:07:05.230 --> 02:07:08.630
In your opinion, what makes him
such a special wrestler and fighter?

02:07:09.530 --> 02:07:13.090
Why has he reached such heights?
Why is he a great fighter?

02:07:14.330 --> 02:07:17.920
- Well, let's start with the fact
that Islam has been doing this for

02:07:19.080 --> 02:07:22.860
His whole life, since childhood.
And I've known him since childhood too.

02:07:23.280 --> 02:07:27.137
We went to the same school, lived
in the same neighborhood, trained at the

02:07:27.220 --> 02:07:29.440
same gym, and he was my father's student.

02:07:30.560 --> 02:07:36.817
And it's worth mentioning, he was one
of my father's favorite students.

02:07:36.900 --> 02:07:43.617
One of the best students. My father saw
in him this potential for greatness in how

02:07:43.700 --> 02:07:50.140
hard he trained. That's what I was talking
about at the beginning of the podcast.

02:07:51.740 --> 02:07:55.450
When you go into the dark,
uncomfortable room and

02:07:55.660 --> 02:07:59.180
stay there for a long time,
no matter how hard it gets.

02:08:00.440 --> 02:08:04.760
He knew how to make sacrifices.
He was very disciplined.

02:08:05.680 --> 02:08:09.317
Nobody reaches this level
by accident. It's

02:08:09.400 --> 02:08:16.400
impossible without exceptional natural
gifts. And he has them. He's gifted. Allah

02:08:17.460 --> 02:08:23.762
blessed him with those gifts.
And he's deeply devoted to what he does.

02:08:23.845 --> 02:08:24.940
We basically

02:08:25.640 --> 02:08:29.440
grew up together, right?
I'm three years older than Islam.

02:08:30.110 --> 02:08:33.740
And I was always a little bigger,
a little older than him.

02:08:34.660 --> 02:08:38.357
So when we were amateurs,
I competed in slightly

02:08:38.440 --> 02:08:42.220
heavier weight classes.
But we worked together a lot.

02:08:42.990 --> 02:08:46.740
And Islam benefited tremendously
from training with me.

02:08:47.500 --> 02:08:51.280
We trained together for many years.
And he never had to

02:08:51.380 --> 02:08:53.980
go anywhere to find a sparring partner

02:08:54.820 --> 02:08:58.677
because he always had one
in the gym. So I developed by

02:08:58.760 --> 02:09:02.620
training with the older guys in the gym,
the stronger guys, the better guys

02:09:03.020 --> 02:09:06.720
when I was young. Then when they
left, I was the one in front.

02:09:06.960 --> 02:09:10.420
Islam kept growing,
growing, growing. Now I left.

02:09:10.740 --> 02:09:14.660
Islam is the one in front. And now
other guys are developing through him.

02:09:15.100 --> 02:09:18.797
This is a kind of chain
that exists in a gym, in a

02:09:18.880 --> 02:09:22.520
training system that produces
the best fighters in the world.

02:09:23.360 --> 02:09:27.217
And in this chain, Islam
was always behind me. If I was

02:09:27.300 --> 02:09:30.977
behind someone, Islam was behind me. Now

02:09:31.060 --> 02:09:34.770
others are following.
Islam, Usman, Amru, and

02:09:34.900 --> 02:09:38.737
other guys. You could put them
against any of the best fighters in

02:09:38.820 --> 02:09:41.740
the world right now,
and they would perform very well.

02:09:43.220 --> 02:09:50.220
So in this chain we've had since 2003,
and now it's already 2026, that's

02:09:51.800 --> 02:09:56.420
23 years. Islam was the
one coming up behind me.

02:09:57.320 --> 02:10:00.880
And now there are younger
guys coming up behind

02:10:01.040 --> 02:10:04.957
Islam. And it's no secret
that Islam will turn 35 in

02:10:05.040 --> 02:10:08.797
October. But what makes me
happy is that there are younger

02:10:08.880 --> 02:10:12.320
guys coming up behind him.
I left. Islam stepped in.

02:10:12.740 --> 02:10:16.657
One day Islam will leave too,
and others will take his place. And this

02:10:16.740 --> 02:10:20.577
cycle, it never ends. It keeps
going, and it keeps pulling the

02:10:20.660 --> 02:10:21.880
next generation forward.

02:10:22.820 --> 02:10:26.457
At the beginning, a lot of people
are involved. But as you gradually

02:10:26.540 --> 02:10:30.000
climb higher, higher, and higher,
the road gets narrower,

02:10:30.460 --> 02:10:34.180
and fewer and fewer people remain.
And alongside Islam,

02:10:34.520 --> 02:10:37.520
a lot of guys were developing
while training with me.

02:10:38.660 --> 02:10:45.660
But Islam made it all the way because of
his work ethic, his discipline, and let's

02:10:46.440 --> 02:10:52.997
call it sacrifice. He gave up a lot
to reach this level. This isn't

02:10:53.080 --> 02:10:58.337
easy. You have to make sacrifices.
You have to make

02:10:58.420 --> 02:11:03.560
sacrifices. You have to give up
parties. You have to sacrifice

02:11:03.720 --> 02:11:07.557
sleep. You have
to sacrifice your time. There

02:11:07.640 --> 02:11:11.120
are so many things you
have to give up. You have to

02:11:11.260 --> 02:11:15.140
dedicate your entire life
to this sport, putting aside all the

02:11:15.240 --> 02:11:18.860
things that can distract you.
You train, you sleep,

02:11:19.200 --> 02:11:23.060
you eat, you wake up,
and then you do it all over again.

02:11:23.640 --> 02:11:26.685
Only then can you reach
the level that Islam reached.

02:11:26.768 --> 02:11:28.480
That's what makes him unique.

02:11:29.660 --> 02:11:35.360
- Were there any small but interesting
differences between you and Islam,

02:11:36.450 --> 02:11:37.700
psychologically speaking?

02:11:38.150 --> 02:11:39.000
- There are many.

02:11:39.580 --> 02:11:43.457
Psychologically, he's very solid too.
I've been around him through so

02:11:43.540 --> 02:11:48.660
many training camps and so many fights.
He's built very strong mentally.

02:11:49.540 --> 02:11:53.137
Of course, we're different in certain
things, but in terms of our fighter's

02:11:53.220 --> 02:11:57.540
attitude toward their work,
we have a lot in common. A lot.

02:11:57.940 --> 02:12:00.740
- You also train a lot.
- Yeah, absolutely. A lot.

02:12:01.000 --> 02:12:07.170
- And I think he... Well, first I have
to say, I watched you train yesterday,

02:12:08.300 --> 02:12:11.857
and it made me really happy
to see that you still love this so

02:12:11.940 --> 02:12:16.980
deeply. You know, it's hard to love
something for such a long time.

02:12:17.700 --> 02:12:23.737
- People finish and move on. They retire
and move on. But me, it's been six years

02:12:23.820 --> 02:12:27.657
since I retired, and I still
haven't let go of wrestling, of

02:12:27.740 --> 02:12:31.380
competition. I still go
to the gym, do cardio,

02:12:31.820 --> 02:12:36.140
lift, wrestle, grapple.
I never let it go. It's still with me.

02:12:37.160 --> 02:12:43.280
And yesterday I told you that last week
I did 200 minutes of live grappling.

02:12:44.280 --> 02:12:48.040
This week is a little different
though, because I'm just focused on

02:12:48.220 --> 02:12:51.940
Umar, traveling,
and everything that comes with that.

02:12:53.020 --> 02:12:56.760
So this week it's going to be less.
Still, I wrestle. I don't let

02:12:56.860 --> 02:13:00.337
go. I love it. I love this energy.
I love that feeling after

02:13:00.420 --> 02:13:03.360
wrestling. You wrestle,
let's say 40 minutes.

02:13:03.860 --> 02:13:08.380
Yesterday I still wanted more.
Just now I wrestled with you, with Islam,

02:13:09.300 --> 02:13:13.660
maybe 20 minutes, but still it's
not enough to get that feeling,

02:13:14.500 --> 02:13:18.280
that 100% feeling. I need around 40

02:13:18.380 --> 02:13:22.217
minutes of wrestling,
something like that. I don't think

02:13:22.300 --> 02:13:25.440
most people listening
to us will understand that.

02:13:27.520 --> 02:13:33.160
But I think some people watching,
especially grappling and jujitsu fans,

02:13:33.960 --> 02:13:36.237
will understand me.

02:13:36.320 --> 02:13:40.000
- Well, to be honest, sometimes
there are cameras around you, and

02:13:40.220 --> 02:13:44.880
for me at least, that's harder.
I like it when there are none.

02:13:45.460 --> 02:13:49.277
- I usually train with no cameras.
With you was one of the

02:13:49.360 --> 02:13:53.060
rare occasions when I come
to the gym and- - You allow?

02:13:53.240 --> 02:13:55.937
- When I allow it, yes. - Thanks for that.

02:13:56.020 --> 02:13:59.320
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is very,
very rare for me. Even with

02:13:59.420 --> 02:14:04.180
Embedded, with UFC, with everyone
who comes, I always say, "Don't film."

02:14:04.860 --> 02:14:08.757
- Thank you, brother.
I don't know why, but cameras get in

02:14:08.840 --> 02:14:12.617
the way for me because this sport,
this preparation, it happens

02:14:12.700 --> 02:14:17.560
here, and that whole world where
celebrities matter, it gets in the way.

02:14:18.260 --> 02:14:25.143
- Yes, it gets in the way. But 99.9%
of our training sessions happen without

02:14:25.227 --> 02:14:29.777
cameras. - Well, thank you, brother.
Let me ask you this. A lot of people say

02:14:29.860 --> 02:14:33.417
you're number one,
the greatest of all time. Do you

02:14:33.500 --> 02:14:39.280
think Islam has a chance to become
the greatest MMA fighter of all time?

02:14:39.680 --> 02:14:43.440
- Well, I've never said that,
and I never set out to become number

02:14:43.560 --> 02:14:48.560
one or to become the greatest
athlete and so on. I never had that.

02:14:50.020 --> 02:14:53.680
My goal was always to become
the best in my sport,

02:14:54.160 --> 02:14:57.380
to become a world champion,
to prove to myself

02:14:57.900 --> 02:15:02.220
that I could do it. But it's
hard to choose just one person.

02:15:03.040 --> 02:15:06.930
Even now, look, there's always
going to be St-Pierre, there's

02:15:07.060 --> 02:15:10.917
always going to be Demetrious
Johnson, there's always going to

02:15:11.000 --> 02:15:14.877
be Jon Jones, there's always
going to be Fedor. If people

02:15:14.960 --> 02:15:18.737
want to include me in that
conversation, if Islam gets into

02:15:18.820 --> 02:15:22.590
that conversation, if there's
Cain Velasquez, Cormier, and

02:15:22.720 --> 02:15:26.170
so on, I'd be happy about that.
And that's my goal,

02:15:26.540 --> 02:15:30.260
that someone from our team,
from the people closest to me,

02:15:30.700 --> 02:15:34.580
gets there too. If Jon Jones is there,
why can't Islam be there?

02:15:35.200 --> 02:15:38.780
If Demetrious Johnson is there
with 11 title defenses,

02:15:39.460 --> 02:15:42.860
why can't Islam be there?
It's a good question. Why not?

02:15:44.000 --> 02:15:47.737
I'd like him to break all
those records, to overtake

02:15:47.820 --> 02:15:51.540
Jon Jones, Demetrious
Johnson, and St-Pierre, no

02:15:51.640 --> 02:15:55.330
matter how much respect I have
for them. Islam has a chance,

02:15:55.960 --> 02:15:58.100
but time is starting to run out a little.

02:15:58.920 --> 02:16:02.757
This worries me because,
for example, Jones fought at light

02:16:02.840 --> 02:16:06.597
heavyweight and now at heavyweight.
Time is a little kinder

02:16:06.680 --> 02:16:10.420
to those divisions.
Even at 38, you can still

02:16:10.520 --> 02:16:14.320
compete at the heavier weights.
You don't need the

02:16:14.420 --> 02:16:18.337
same reaction speed and all that.
But when you compete in

02:16:18.420 --> 02:16:23.895
lighter weight classes, 155,
170, age really catches up.

02:16:23.978 --> 02:16:30.880
I think active fighters,
retired fighters, wrestlers, athletes,

02:16:31.940 --> 02:16:35.440
especially those who competed
in these weight classes,

02:16:35.720 --> 02:16:38.340
will understand what I'm talking about.

02:16:39.460 --> 02:16:42.960
When you're 35 and when
you're 32 and when you're

02:16:43.140 --> 02:16:45.480
38, you're a totally different athlete.

02:16:46.680 --> 02:16:50.557
- From where you are now, you can
see the entire fight business, and you

02:16:50.640 --> 02:16:53.880
know Dana White very well.
I'd say he's one of those

02:16:53.980 --> 02:17:00.240
rare geniuses in sports business,
in business, period.

02:17:01.180 --> 02:17:04.857
I don't think the UFC would exist
without Dana White. There are

02:17:04.940 --> 02:17:08.690
important people there, of course,
but he's really at the center of it all.

02:17:09.560 --> 02:17:13.180
What can you say about him?
What qualities,

02:17:14.160 --> 02:17:18.580
what traits have made him
such a successful businessman?

02:17:19.480 --> 02:17:20.630
- First of all, I think

02:17:22.720 --> 02:17:26.637
if you look at it, I also kind of...
Well, not kind of, I understand

02:17:26.720 --> 02:17:27.940
his position a little.

02:17:29.340 --> 02:17:32.797
I also ran my own league for a
couple of years. I know what the

02:17:32.880 --> 02:17:36.830
relationship between a promoter,
well, a league owner

02:17:37.000 --> 02:17:42.960
and the fighters is like, not just
as a fighter dealing with a league owner.

02:17:43.960 --> 02:17:46.000
I've been on both sides of it.

02:17:48.080 --> 02:17:51.840
He's very good at separating business
from personal relationships. For

02:17:51.940 --> 02:17:58.930
him, the two never overlap. He draws
a clear line between them. In business,

02:17:59.590 --> 02:18:04.640
he's extremely cold-blooded.
He's made decisions,

02:18:07.120 --> 02:18:10.947
some major decisions,
regardless of whether people

02:18:11.030 --> 02:18:14.697
like them or not. And those
decisions, they were best for the

02:18:14.780 --> 02:18:20.820
league and for the UFC. He always had
that mentality, you know, like in those

02:18:21.840 --> 02:18:25.637
mafia movies where
family comes first, right?

02:18:25.720 --> 02:18:27.920
Well, for him, the UFC always came first.

02:18:29.530 --> 02:18:33.417
That's the only way he was able to push
their brand forward. Of course, a lot

02:18:33.500 --> 02:18:38.080
of people contributed to that success.
There were a lot of them. You have to

02:18:39.020 --> 02:18:44.600
give credit to Bruce Buffer, to Joe Rogan,
to the commentators who were there.

02:18:45.460 --> 02:18:48.310
There were a lot of things
that made the UFC unique, but,

02:18:49.120 --> 02:18:53.057
but the cherry on top was always Dana.
Dana did an incredible job

02:18:53.140 --> 02:18:58.320
promoting the UFC, and he still does.
No matter what, the UFC is always there.

02:18:59.560 --> 02:19:04.820
You know? No matter how, no matter how
unsuccessful a particular event might be,

02:19:05.700 --> 02:19:09.497
the UFC is still the UFC.
When they go into a new market

02:19:09.580 --> 02:19:13.397
outside the United States, even if
a show doesn't go so well, people

02:19:13.480 --> 02:19:16.880
will still come back for the next
event simply because it's the UFC.

02:19:17.320 --> 02:19:21.077
Over the last 30 plus years,
they've established themselves as the

02:19:21.160 --> 02:19:24.830
premier MMA league in the world,
and they put on the best fights.

02:19:25.540 --> 02:19:29.477
So in that respect, I think a huge
part of the credit goes to Dana. The

02:19:29.560 --> 02:19:32.820
fact that the UFC has come
this far is a major achievement.

02:19:33.340 --> 02:19:35.957
- Building a league like
that is incredibly difficult

02:19:36.040 --> 02:19:39.417
- Yeah. A lot of people have money and a
lot of people have tried. Many have come

02:19:39.500 --> 02:19:43.417
in. But building what the UFC
has built is extremely hard. And

02:19:43.500 --> 02:19:45.550
what they've achieved now with Paramount,

02:19:46.230 --> 02:19:50.057
that's something unique. It's a unique
achievement. In just 30 years, they've

02:19:50.140 --> 02:19:55.300
grown to a level that some entire
sports needed 100 or 150 years to reach.

02:19:56.720 --> 02:19:58.433
And you have to give
credit where it's due,

02:19:58.516 --> 02:20:00.777
and that credit goes
to one person, Dana White.

02:20:00.860 --> 02:20:06.227
So I think that his genius
as a promoter, the way he promotes

02:20:06.310 --> 02:20:11.697
and pushes fights, and pushes his
league as a whole, that is just

02:20:11.780 --> 02:20:15.637
remarkable. In my opinion, that's
something a lot of people could learn

02:20:15.720 --> 02:20:16.554
from him.

02:20:17.020 --> 02:20:19.970
- You mentioned Joe Rogan.
You know, he's a friend of mine.

02:20:21.560 --> 02:20:25.417
I love listening to his podcast, but I've
never actually heard the two of you

02:20:25.500 --> 02:20:28.775
have a conversation together. Do you think
that's something that could happen in

02:20:28.858 --> 02:20:32.301
the future? - Yes, of course. - I know
you have a great deal of respect for him,

02:20:32.384 --> 02:20:33.697
and he has a great deal of respect for

02:20:33.780 --> 02:20:36.720
you. I can't wait to hear
the two of you talk.

02:20:37.300 --> 02:20:40.777
- Same here. If we're talking about the
people most responsible for promoting the

02:20:40.860 --> 02:20:44.797
UFC, I'd put Dana first.
But second place, without question,

02:20:44.880 --> 02:20:48.480
goes to Joe Rogan. It's honestly
hard to imagine the UFC without him.

02:20:48.960 --> 02:20:51.210
It'll be hard when he's
no longer part of it.

02:20:52.420 --> 02:20:56.380
And what he's achieved in his own field,
what he's achieved in podcasting,

02:20:57.700 --> 02:21:01.540
he's the best. And what he's
built, the way he commentates,

02:21:01.860 --> 02:21:05.240
the way he communicates,
his knowledge, his charisma,

02:21:06.620 --> 02:21:10.620
the way he carries a conversation, I think
a lot of people could learn from him.

02:21:11.340 --> 02:21:15.257
And as for me going on his podcast,
I think it's inevitable. God willing, if

02:21:15.340 --> 02:21:19.217
we're given the time and the health,
we'll have a lot to talk about. There

02:21:19.300 --> 02:21:23.217
are so many different topics we could
discuss together, so a conversation with

02:21:23.300 --> 02:21:26.900
Joe Rogan would be very interesting.
I'd definitely like to talk to him.

02:21:27.480 --> 02:21:31.180
- I agree. But it's interesting,
right now you and I are speaking Russian.

02:21:31.580 --> 02:21:32.897
Language is a tricky thing.

02:21:32.980 --> 02:21:36.020
- Yeah, exactly. With him
you need to come prepared.

02:21:36.160 --> 02:21:40.020
Because if you show up unprepared,
he will just eat you alive.

02:21:40.800 --> 02:21:43.820
You have to be ready.
It's a mental battle, too.

02:21:43.940 --> 02:21:48.050
- Yeah. And by the way, you know,
you've mentioned a few times that

02:21:49.280 --> 02:21:53.520
you'd like to improve your Arabic.
Language is such an interesting thing.

02:21:54.460 --> 02:21:56.280
It opens doors to understanding.

02:21:57.140 --> 02:22:00.690
It allows you to understand culture
and history on a much deeper level.

02:22:01.020 --> 02:22:04.700
- Absolutely. Without the language,
it's very difficult. I'm starting to

02:22:04.840 --> 02:22:09.400
study Arabic now, but I've been reading
the Quran since I was a child. I know the

02:22:10.380 --> 02:22:14.700
the alphabet very well, the pronunciation
rules. I can read it well.

02:22:15.800 --> 02:22:19.220
But the Quran and Arabic as a
spoken language are different.

02:22:20.280 --> 02:22:23.740
I wouldn't say they're drastically
different, but they are different.

02:22:24.720 --> 02:22:28.577
If you want to speak it conversationally,
you need to study grammar and learn

02:22:28.660 --> 02:22:29.760
it in a different way.

02:22:31.280 --> 02:22:37.537
- I'd also like to ask you about Ali, Ali
Abdelaziz. He's such a central figure. He

02:22:37.620 --> 02:22:39.070
represents so many champions.

02:22:40.660 --> 02:22:44.060
What do you respect about him?
What do you think makes him a genius?

02:22:44.640 --> 02:22:46.340
Because he's such a unique person.

02:22:47.400 --> 02:22:53.740
- Well, I met Ali in 2014.
We've been working together ever since.

02:22:54.660 --> 02:22:59.860
Over the years, a lot of fighters
came to him through me, a lot of guys.

02:23:01.700 --> 02:23:08.700
And in all this time, in the 12 years
we've known each other, I don't--

02:23:11.120 --> 02:23:16.400
I can barely remember any fighters
leaving him, except maybe a couple.

02:23:17.580 --> 02:23:21.317
But hundreds of fighters have worked with
him, hundreds of fighters, and so many

02:23:21.400 --> 02:23:25.257
guys still keep in touch with him,
and he has very good relationships with

02:23:25.340 --> 02:23:31.180
them. I'd also like to note that Ali,
you know, he has one unique quality.

02:23:32.580 --> 02:23:36.217
People either really
love him or really hate

02:23:36.300 --> 02:23:40.177
him. You can't just be neutral about
him, you know, like, "Yeah, I know

02:23:40.260 --> 02:23:41.310
Ali. He's all right."

02:23:42.120 --> 02:23:45.770
No one will say about him, "Well,
you know, I know him. He's a good guy."

02:23:47.100 --> 02:23:50.300
You'll have strong feelings
for him. Either you hate him

02:23:51.000 --> 02:23:55.520
or you really love him. And I am in

02:23:56.620 --> 02:24:02.497
in that category of people who really...
How do I put it? Who are very fond of him.

02:24:02.580 --> 02:24:06.237
And I have a good relationship with him.
I know his family. I know his

02:24:06.320 --> 02:24:10.217
children. His kids grew up
before my eyes. When I first met

02:24:10.300 --> 02:24:13.100
him, he only had two or three
children. Now he has more.

02:24:15.560 --> 02:24:18.180
This is the kind of person he is.

02:24:19.740 --> 02:24:23.230
You need to get to know him
better to really appreciate him,

02:24:23.600 --> 02:24:26.740
and he will stand by you
until the very end.

02:24:27.860 --> 02:24:31.677
And yeah, of course,
there are people who have

02:24:31.760 --> 02:24:35.577
who have mixed feelings about him.
But that's my point. It's hard

02:24:35.660 --> 02:24:37.780
to feel indifferent about Ali.

02:24:37.910 --> 02:24:41.860
"I know Ali. He's a very good guy."
No, it's different with him.

02:24:42.100 --> 02:24:45.730
People will either tell you, "I know
Ali and I absolutely love him," or,

02:24:46.080 --> 02:24:47.940
"I know Ali and I can't stand him."

02:24:48.620 --> 02:24:52.077
- So, it's fair to say that
most people who- - Yes, yes

02:24:52.160 --> 02:24:56.420
-... who really know him and work
with him tend to stay with him for life?

02:24:56.960 --> 02:25:00.960
- Yes. - And respect him. That's
important. And his judo isn't bad either.

02:25:02.700 --> 02:25:04.757
- It was. - He showed me.
- It was. It was, it was.

02:25:04.840 --> 02:25:08.217
- Oh, right, you were just
wrestling yesterday. All

02:25:08.300 --> 02:25:11.740
right. Let's talk about football now.
I want to ask you something,

02:25:12.260 --> 02:25:16.117
and I need to be careful here because
after yesterday, I realize just how

02:25:16.200 --> 02:25:17.650
much you know about the game.

02:25:18.620 --> 02:25:22.400
I can't even pretend I know what I'm
talking about anymore. I need to tread

02:25:22.520 --> 02:25:23.353
carefully.

02:25:23.780 --> 02:25:25.860
- Yes. If we're gonna go there-

02:25:26.020 --> 02:25:28.920
... don't make any mistakes.
I hope you did your research.

02:25:29.420 --> 02:25:30.717
- I'm shaking now. - You prepared?

02:25:30.800 --> 02:25:32.800
- Wait. We could talk about

02:25:34.060 --> 02:25:37.294
a lot of interesting teams. You talked
about the moment when you fell in love

02:25:37.377 --> 02:25:38.210
with football.

02:25:38.880 --> 02:25:42.920
That was the Champions
League final in 1998.

02:25:43.120 --> 02:25:47.360
It was Real Madrid against Juventus.
It was the moment when you,

02:25:48.620 --> 02:25:50.820
you realized that Real
Madrid was your team,

02:25:51.210 --> 02:25:54.377
the club you've continued
to love and support ever since.

02:25:54.460 --> 02:25:58.460
Tell me about that very first moment when
you watched the game with your father.

02:26:00.260 --> 02:26:04.157
What do you remember? You know,
this is such an important sport for

02:26:04.240 --> 02:26:08.300
you, for millions, hundreds
of millions, billions of people.

02:26:08.810 --> 02:26:09.643
- Billions, yes.

02:26:09.840 --> 02:26:12.777
- What do you remember most about that
game, and what did you fall in love with?

02:26:12.860 --> 02:26:16.577
- Well, first of all, my father
was a huge football fan. He was a good

02:26:16.660 --> 02:26:20.417
player himself. When we lived
in the village, they played almost every

02:26:20.500 --> 02:26:24.230
day. Football has always been very
popular where I'm from. The kids,

02:26:24.780 --> 02:26:28.517
the young people, everyone plays.
In fact, we still have this

02:26:28.600 --> 02:26:34.717
tradition in the village. As long
as I can remember, it was a tradition

02:26:34.800 --> 02:26:38.737
to... for each street
to put together its own team

02:26:38.820 --> 02:26:42.040
for a tournament with, eh,
group stages, then the quarterfinals,

02:26:42.340 --> 02:26:47.610
semifinals, and the final. So it became
a real tradition, and everyone would.

02:26:48.500 --> 02:26:51.500
Everyone there follows football,
the kids, the young people.

02:26:52.480 --> 02:26:54.700
And my father played, too.

02:26:55.800 --> 02:26:58.750
Whenever there was a big match on,
I'd always sit with him,

02:26:59.360 --> 02:27:02.180
in front of the television and watch.

02:27:03.740 --> 02:27:07.577
The first football memory I have that's
really clear and conscious goes back

02:27:07.660 --> 02:27:11.437
to 1996. I couldn't tell
you where we were watching

02:27:11.520 --> 02:27:14.557
it. I don't remember, but I
remember sitting next to my

02:27:14.640 --> 02:27:18.530
father. It was the European Championship
semifinal, Germany and England.

02:27:19.860 --> 02:27:24.000
England lost on penalties at home,
and Germany advanced to the final.

02:27:25.280 --> 02:27:27.630
A few days later,
we watched the final as well.

02:27:29.440 --> 02:27:31.720
We were at someone's place.
We didn't have a TV at the time,

02:27:31.804 --> 02:27:33.317
or maybe our channel wasn't showing the

02:27:33.400 --> 02:27:37.197
match. I don't remember.
We watched it at somebody's place. It

02:27:37.280 --> 02:27:40.940
was Germany against the Czech Republic.
Germany won that final.

02:27:42.040 --> 02:27:45.877
I remember Oliver Bierhoff coming off the
bench and scoring. That whole period is

02:27:45.960 --> 02:27:47.860
still very vivid in my memory.

02:27:48.870 --> 02:27:52.657
After that, I kept watching football
whenever I could. And I remember

02:27:52.740 --> 02:27:56.760
the 1998 Champions League final.
I watched it with my father.

02:27:57.880 --> 02:28:01.680
Again, I don't remember where we
watched it, but it was the final, 1 to

02:28:01.780 --> 02:28:05.720
0. Real Madrid won. I can still remember
the players who were on the pitch.

02:28:06.280 --> 02:28:09.840
Uh, I was obsessed with football myself.

02:28:10.180 --> 02:28:14.117
I'd spend hours, days outside
playing with a ball, sometimes on my

02:28:14.200 --> 02:28:20.380
own, sometimes with a group.
There was a period when, actually,

02:28:21.360 --> 02:28:25.060
in the settlement where
I lived, in the village,

02:28:26.180 --> 02:28:28.680
I was pretty much the only
kid who had a football.

02:28:29.560 --> 02:28:31.820
So the older guys would come over.

02:28:32.800 --> 02:28:36.080
I was maybe nine or ten, and these
were boys who were fifteen or sixteen.

02:28:36.163 --> 02:28:38.600
They'd say, "Habib, bring the ball out."

02:28:38.940 --> 02:28:43.037
But I'd give them a condition for bringing
the ball out. When you're ten years old,

02:28:43.120 --> 02:28:46.246
nobody is putting you on a team
with fifteen-year-olds, you know.

02:28:46.329 --> 02:28:50.129
The age gap is just too big. So I'd say,
"If I bring the ball, I'm playing."

02:28:50.680 --> 02:28:54.437
They go, "All right, bring it out," and
I'd get to play. And the kids my own age

02:28:54.520 --> 02:28:58.370
didn't make the team. You know how it
is when there are a lot of kids around.

02:28:59.120 --> 02:29:01.320
Of course, the older
boys would take charge.

02:29:02.400 --> 02:29:05.511
They decide who's playing. Normally,
when you're ten and they're fifteen,

02:29:05.595 --> 02:29:09.520
there was no chance you'd get picked.
But I was very lucky. I had the ball, so

02:29:10.400 --> 02:29:12.343
I always made the team
and got to play with them.

02:29:12.426 --> 02:29:14.037
That's where it all started, really, you

02:29:14.120 --> 02:29:17.180
know. That love for football
started in my childhood.

02:29:18.220 --> 02:29:22.057
My father and I always watched the big
matches together. I even remember

02:29:22.140 --> 02:29:25.877
the 1998. I remember being
somewhere and literally

02:29:25.960 --> 02:29:29.400
running home, so I wouldn't miss
the opening ceremony of the tournament

02:29:29.484 --> 02:29:30.317
in France.

02:29:31.960 --> 02:29:35.010
I was just running.
I ran to my grandfather's house and said,

02:29:35.700 --> 02:29:39.597
"Grandpa, put on channel one." I think
it was channel one that was showing the

02:29:39.680 --> 02:29:42.080
opening. Ronaldo was playing
in that tournament.

02:29:44.400 --> 02:29:47.800
So I sat there watching, and my
grandfather looked at me. I was ten.

02:29:49.220 --> 02:29:51.770
He looked at me and said,
"Why are you interested?"

02:29:52.200 --> 02:29:56.157
I said, "I want to watch."
I sat and watched. The Brazilians won

02:29:56.240 --> 02:29:59.697
both matches back then, I think.
They won against Morocco and lost to the

02:29:59.780 --> 02:30:03.437
Norwegians. - The opening match was Brazil
against Scotland, two-one, right?

02:30:03.520 --> 02:30:07.117
- Yeah, two to one.
So basically, from childhood, I

02:30:07.200 --> 02:30:08.950
already had that love for football,

02:30:09.640 --> 02:30:13.637
and then it just grew. I started watching
the Champions League, the Euros, the World

02:30:13.720 --> 02:30:17.470
Cup, and later the domestic leagues,
mostly the Premier League.

02:30:20.240 --> 02:30:22.657
So that's where this passion comes from.

02:30:22.740 --> 02:30:26.357
- And what about national teams?
Brazil was your team growing up,

02:30:26.440 --> 02:30:29.620
right? That legendary Brazil team.

02:30:30.520 --> 02:30:34.380
- I like Brazil, yes. I also like
the Netherlands. Those national teams,

02:30:34.680 --> 02:30:38.430
Brazil and the Netherlands, those were
the ones that really appealed to me.

02:30:39.060 --> 02:30:42.460
- And what about clubs? What were
the main teams that you supported?

02:30:43.120 --> 02:30:46.970
- It varied. I never had one national
team that I'd say was my favorite team.

02:30:47.300 --> 02:30:47.927
- Ah, you didn't?

02:30:48.010 --> 02:30:51.937
- I didn't. Today, I don't feel the same
way about the Netherlands. But back

02:30:52.020 --> 02:30:55.960
then, I really liked that Dutch
team a lot. Van der Sar,

02:30:56.220 --> 02:31:02.320
Reiziger, van Bronckhorst, Overmars,
Davids, Seedorf, van Nistelrooy, Makaay.

02:31:04.200 --> 02:31:06.020
That old lineup. Kluivert.

02:31:06.980 --> 02:31:10.577
Now it's not the same. That era is gone.
They just don't have players like that

02:31:10.660 --> 02:31:14.610
anymore. In that sense, there's been
a bit of a drop-off for the national team.

02:31:15.000 --> 02:31:18.857
The same with Brazil. Back then, they
were incredibly strong, but today it's not

02:31:18.940 --> 02:31:20.290
at that same level anymore.

02:31:21.160 --> 02:31:24.280
But when it comes to the club,
the club I follow, that's Real Madrid.

02:31:24.364 --> 02:31:25.197
That's the one.

02:31:25.520 --> 02:31:29.357
But if we're talking about leagues
overall, then because of the competition

02:31:29.440 --> 02:31:32.920
and the way the league is played,
I'd say the English Premier League.

02:31:34.300 --> 02:31:37.920
- And in the Premier League,
do you follow Man U, City?

02:31:38.020 --> 02:31:41.937
- Not in a way where I have one team,
no. I like them. They're both top

02:31:42.020 --> 02:31:45.657
clubs. They're big clubs.
I watch them. I follow them. It just

02:31:45.740 --> 02:31:49.380
depends. But it's not like I
have one favorite. I do like City,

02:31:49.560 --> 02:31:53.257
Manchester City. In recent years, they've
been winning almost everything. They've

02:31:53.340 --> 02:31:54.990
dominated for the last ten years.

02:31:56.120 --> 02:32:00.037
But if we look more closely
at Manchester City, there's

02:32:00.120 --> 02:32:02.640
been a bit of a dip over
the last two seasons.

02:32:05.120 --> 02:32:09.037
And then you also have the rise of Arsenal
in the last couple of seasons, a very

02:32:09.120 --> 02:32:12.957
well-structured team under Arteta.
They're really on the rise this season.

02:32:13.040 --> 02:32:16.437
They're leading the league, doing well
in the Champions League. They're leading

02:32:16.520 --> 02:32:19.880
domestically as well,
so I don't know how far they'll go,

02:32:20.460 --> 02:32:22.760
but they're aiming
for the treble this season.

02:32:23.940 --> 02:32:28.860
- I wanna ask because we lived through
such a moment in sports history-

02:32:29.120 --> 02:32:33.510
... that we might never see anything
like it again. I'm talking about this,

02:32:35.080 --> 02:32:37.530
this rivalry between Messi
and Cristiano Ronaldo.

02:32:38.600 --> 02:32:42.570
Of course, since you love
Real Madrid, you know, you

02:32:42.660 --> 02:32:46.557
naturally love Cristiano Ronaldo,
but what can you say about it? A

02:32:46.640 --> 02:32:50.820
lot of people call him the absolute best,
and for many, Messi is number one.

02:32:51.860 --> 02:32:55.160
There's also a very good book
about their rivalry. I recommend it.

02:32:56.720 --> 02:33:00.057
It basically tells the story
of modern football through their

02:33:00.140 --> 02:33:06.400
rivalry, Messi versus Ronaldo,
one rivalry, almost 20-year era.

02:33:06.520 --> 02:33:10.480
Uh, two GOATs in an era that remade
the world's game. So it's been

02:33:10.660 --> 02:33:13.957
20 years. So what can you say?
Why do you consider Cristiano

02:33:14.040 --> 02:33:18.960
Ronaldo a great footballer? What do you
like about him? Let's start with Ronaldo.

02:33:21.260 --> 02:33:25.000
- Well, he's a natural
born athlete. He is...

02:33:26.480 --> 02:33:30.100
God gave him the athleticism,
and he managed to maintain it.

02:33:30.420 --> 02:33:32.320
There are many who have lost it.

02:33:32.940 --> 02:33:37.480
There are many players who have talent,
physical ability, but they are lazy.

02:33:38.340 --> 02:33:43.480
But he has it all, athleticism,
talent, hard work, everything,

02:33:44.540 --> 02:33:48.430
and then there's this.
He played in Manchester. He moved.

02:33:49.900 --> 02:33:53.400
He shone in Portugal at Sporting,
then moved to Manchester.

02:33:54.040 --> 02:33:57.720
And it's not easy to make your
mark at Manchester. From 2003 to

02:33:57.920 --> 02:34:01.760
2008, he became a star there,
and what he achieved in 2008,

02:34:02.460 --> 02:34:06.357
just look at how many individual
trophies he won and how much he won with

02:34:06.440 --> 02:34:10.297
his team. You can even look it up.
Just search what Cristiano Ronaldo

02:34:10.380 --> 02:34:14.400
achieved in 2008.
It's simply unbelievable.

02:34:15.680 --> 02:34:19.577
And then he moved from Manchester.
He transferred to an even more

02:34:19.660 --> 02:34:23.780
difficult club, Real Madrid,
nine years at Real Madrid.

02:34:24.060 --> 02:34:27.737
Five years at Manchester United,
then nine years at Real Madrid. That's

02:34:27.820 --> 02:34:33.597
about 15 years. You're under constant
pressure at the two biggest clubs in the

02:34:33.680 --> 02:34:34.790
history of football,

02:34:35.760 --> 02:34:40.140
and at both clubs, at both clubs,
he became the best. That's very difficult.

02:34:40.750 --> 02:34:44.247
- Yeah, look here. Three Premier League
titles came during his time at Manchester

02:34:44.331 --> 02:34:48.917
United. - Look at 2008 specifically, what
he accomplished then. He won the Premier

02:34:49.000 --> 02:34:52.857
League. He won the UEFA Champions
League. Individually, he won

02:34:52.940 --> 02:34:56.760
the Golden Boot, top score
in the Champions League, the Premier

02:34:56.860 --> 02:35:02.157
League, every major trophy. But the point
is that at Manchester, he spent five

02:35:02.240 --> 02:35:05.977
years performing at the
highest level under enormous

02:35:06.060 --> 02:35:09.817
pressure. Then he spent
nine years at Real Madrid.

02:35:09.900 --> 02:35:13.637
After that, he moved to Juventus, but only
for a short time, and this is the part

02:35:13.720 --> 02:35:17.437
people tend to forget. He spent
three seasons at Juventus, and he

02:35:17.520 --> 02:35:22.480
also won both the Italian championship and
the Super Cup there and scored 100 goals.

02:35:23.620 --> 02:35:26.100
And just the fact that for 20 years,

02:35:27.100 --> 02:35:31.260
let's say 22 or 23 years,
he's been at the highest level.

02:35:32.330 --> 02:35:36.277
Look at how many goals he scored, and now
he's closing in on 1,000. Will Messi

02:35:36.360 --> 02:35:40.237
ever reach that number is the big
question. Next season, he scores 40

02:35:40.320 --> 02:35:43.920
goals in a season, and he's
less than 40 goals away from the

02:35:44.500 --> 02:35:48.240
1,000-goal mark. That's how
unique he is in that regard. But

02:35:49.340 --> 02:35:52.970
just because I'm a Real Madrid
fan doesn't mean I downplay what

02:35:53.060 --> 02:35:56.660
Messi has achieved. It's impossible
to downplay what Messi's done.

02:35:57.140 --> 02:35:59.007
You have to give him
the credit he deserves,

02:35:59.090 --> 02:36:00.967
but I wouldn't want
to put one of them above

02:36:01.050 --> 02:36:03.940
the other. If I'm being
honest, both of them,

02:36:04.980 --> 02:36:08.280
watching each other, competing
with each other, they stayed there.

02:36:09.500 --> 02:36:12.813
Would Messi be Messi without Ronaldo?
Would Ronaldo be Ronaldo without Messi?

02:36:12.897 --> 02:36:13.437
Those are big

02:36:13.520 --> 02:36:17.217
questions. I'm convinced they watched
each other closely. They always

02:36:17.300 --> 02:36:18.700
have, and they still do now.

02:36:19.300 --> 02:36:23.000
For almost 20 years, they've been
watching each other, pushing each other,

02:36:23.220 --> 02:36:26.937
and constantly improving. They were
already the best, but that drove them even

02:36:27.020 --> 02:36:32.740
further. By competing against one another,
they pulled so far ahead of the rest.

02:36:33.020 --> 02:36:36.977
Whether you're talking about achievements,
trophies, and all that, and in that

02:36:37.060 --> 02:36:40.837
sense, their rivalry truly
elevated the entire sport. More

02:36:40.920 --> 02:36:44.650
people started following football
because of them, watching the games.

02:36:45.490 --> 02:36:48.640
So I believe both of them
deserve tremendous respect.

02:36:49.520 --> 02:36:53.500
- Yeah. I'd say I completely
agree with you that if Messi

02:36:54.540 --> 02:36:57.840
hadn't had Ronaldo
and Ronaldo hadn't had Messi-

02:36:58.140 --> 02:36:59.617
- Yeah, would they have gone that far?

02:36:59.700 --> 02:37:01.337
- I don't think so.
- It's an open question.

02:37:01.420 --> 02:37:02.380
- I don't think so.

02:37:02.760 --> 02:37:06.022
But for me, there is nobody like Messi,
his pure love for the game for its own

02:37:06.106 --> 02:37:08.277
sake. - You're a Barca guy?

02:37:08.360 --> 02:37:12.410
Oh, really? Yeah, I can tell from the way
you're talking about it, the way you...

02:37:12.640 --> 02:37:15.640
- You got me. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nothing against it, but...

02:37:16.040 --> 02:37:19.600
- Yes, sure. Well, I mean, Iniesta, Xavi,

02:37:19.700 --> 02:37:23.540
Busquets, Iniesta, Puyol,
that was a legendary team.

02:37:23.640 --> 02:37:30.640
- Yes. No, but look, you can compare them
like this. Iniesta, Xavi, Busquets, Messi,

02:37:32.960 --> 02:37:34.500
Ronaldinho, Piqué.

02:37:35.120 --> 02:37:39.300
- Ronaldinho, yes. - Ronaldinho,
he was a bit earlier. That Barcelona team

02:37:39.700 --> 02:37:43.140
from roughly 2008 to 2012,
that four-year period,

02:37:43.660 --> 02:37:49.680
only one team in history can compare
with them, Real Madrid from 2014 to 2018.

02:37:50.490 --> 02:37:53.780
They won in 2014, in 2016, 2017, and

02:37:53.970 --> 02:37:57.470
2018. The only interruption
was Barcelona's team with Neymar.

02:37:57.850 --> 02:37:58.800
- With Neymar, yes.

02:37:59.010 --> 02:38:02.460
- With Suarez and Messi, that was 2015.
Well, let's leave that aside.

02:38:03.030 --> 02:38:07.030
But, you know, with Modric,
Kroos, Casemiro, Ronaldo, Benzema,

02:38:08.350 --> 02:38:15.350
Marcelo, Carvajal, Casillas,
and this team compared to Victor Valdes,

02:38:16.730 --> 02:38:21.750
Pique, Puyol, Dani Alves,
Jordi Alba, Busquets, Xavi, Iniesta,

02:38:22.730 --> 02:38:26.070
Villa, and Messi, for me,
those are the two greatest teams.

02:38:26.590 --> 02:38:31.890
Different generations, different squads.
For me, they truly represent a

02:38:33.430 --> 02:38:38.290
represent true dream teams at football,
at club level. That's the comparison.

02:38:39.290 --> 02:38:46.290
But if we look at the national team
level you could pick France in 1998.

02:38:49.070 --> 02:38:56.070
That 1998 France team is very close
to a perfect team, and also 2002 Brazil.

02:38:58.130 --> 02:39:00.110
In 2002, they were extremely strong.

02:39:00.250 --> 02:39:07.050
- Yes, you had Ronaldo. - You had Ronaldo,
Rivaldo, Ronaldinho, Roberto Carlos, Cafu.

02:39:07.930 --> 02:39:14.310
You had Emerson. You had Kleberson,
I think Roque Junior, Lucio, Edmilson.

02:39:14.630 --> 02:39:18.447
And beyond those superstar names,
there were also very strong

02:39:18.530 --> 02:39:21.840
players who kind of stayed
in the shadow of those stars.

02:39:22.170 --> 02:39:27.230
Stayed in their shadow.
So Brazil 2002, France 1998,

02:39:28.790 --> 02:39:35.530
and then there was later Spain from Euro
2008, the 2010 World Cup, and Euro

02:39:35.630 --> 02:39:40.930
2012. That period, too, Spain. The Spanish
national team was close to perfect.

02:39:41.710 --> 02:39:45.580
- I wanted to go back to France.
You mentioned Zidane. I really,

02:39:45.810 --> 02:39:47.450
really respect and admire him.

02:39:48.710 --> 02:39:52.307
There was this moment psychologically
very interesting, almost

02:39:52.390 --> 02:39:55.100
Shakespearean moment in his
career when it ended with,

02:39:55.950 --> 02:39:58.140
ended with that...
How do you even call it?

02:39:58.910 --> 02:40:01.447
- A headbutt. A headbutt to the chest.

02:40:01.530 --> 02:40:05.750
- What's interesting is, I don't know,
looking at your fight with Conor-

02:40:06.010 --> 02:40:07.310
When emotion builds up,

02:40:09.530 --> 02:40:14.150
for most of it you're focused on the game,
but in the end you let that emotion out.

02:40:14.320 --> 02:40:16.220
What do you think about that headbutt?

02:40:17.230 --> 02:40:18.780
- I wouldn't want to judge him,

02:40:19.790 --> 02:40:23.510
wouldn't want to be some kind
of judge of what he did, no.

02:40:24.400 --> 02:40:27.950
Well, he did what he did. We don't
know what was really going on there.

02:40:29.170 --> 02:40:33.107
But as a player, of course, he was unique.
He won the Euros, the World

02:40:33.190 --> 02:40:36.827
Cup, reached finals, won the Champions
League, the Spanish and the Italian

02:40:36.910 --> 02:40:39.250
championships, and cups, too.

02:40:41.150 --> 02:40:44.967
It's just unique, and the way he played,
I just always remembered him for

02:40:45.050 --> 02:40:48.827
the way sweat was just pouring off
him, the way he ran, how he gave

02:40:48.910 --> 02:40:52.487
everything in every single match.
He had incredible stamina,

02:40:52.570 --> 02:40:56.410
incredible endurance. I think a lot
of people listening to this podcast

02:40:56.890 --> 02:40:58.940
may not have watched Zidane playing live.

02:40:59.950 --> 02:41:02.830
When I say live, I mean
watching him play in real time.

02:41:03.510 --> 02:41:06.460
I personally didn't see his
games live. I was younger then.

02:41:07.350 --> 02:41:11.260
But I did watch many of his matches
later on. I remember the goals he

02:41:11.350 --> 02:41:14.760
scored in World Cup
finals in 1998 and 2006,

02:41:15.150 --> 02:41:18.090
especially the headers,
and even that penalty,

02:41:19.050 --> 02:41:22.327
the Champions League final,
European championships, the way he played,

02:41:22.410 --> 02:41:26.470
the way he handled the ball,
the way the ball was,

02:41:27.370 --> 02:41:31.650
the way the ball was glued to his feet,
his movements, and then his charisma.

02:41:32.750 --> 02:41:36.407
It's rare to find all of that in one
player. You don't see that combination

02:41:36.490 --> 02:41:40.090
often. There are many very good players,
but sometimes they're just not,

02:41:42.490 --> 02:41:45.090
not that interesting to watch.
You know what I mean?

02:41:46.250 --> 02:41:49.724
I don't want to give specific examples
because someone might take it the wrong

02:41:49.808 --> 02:41:56.650
way, so I won't name anyone. But there
are players who are phenomenal in terms of

02:41:57.210 --> 02:41:59.370
in terms of their physical attributes:

02:42:00.550 --> 02:42:04.367
fast, explosive, effective.
But they don't have charisma, that energy

02:42:04.450 --> 02:42:08.670
that makes people want to watch them,
and I don't think that's their fault.

02:42:10.330 --> 02:42:14.310
But with Zidane, everything came together.
You always wanted to watch him play.

02:42:15.270 --> 02:42:18.634
You always want to watch Ronaldo play.
You always want to watch Beckham play.

02:42:18.717 --> 02:42:19.147
You want to

02:42:19.230 --> 02:42:22.927
watch Edgar Davids running around the
field in those glasses, his hair bouncing

02:42:23.010 --> 02:42:27.250
behind him, right? You still wanted
to watch the way Barthez played in goal.

02:42:29.150 --> 02:42:32.687
No matter how many bizarre goals he
conceded, you still wanted to watch him

02:42:32.770 --> 02:42:36.990
play. Or Oliver Kahn, the way he stood
in goal and directed the whole team,

02:42:38.120 --> 02:42:42.050
the way he would rush out to the ball,
the way strikers were afraid of him.

02:42:43.190 --> 02:42:46.787
I mean, so many strikers
have admitted that they were

02:42:46.870 --> 02:42:51.130
afraid if they found themselves one-on-one
with Oliver Kahn in the penalty area.

02:42:52.150 --> 02:42:55.867
You always wanted to watch Roberto
Carlos take a free kick or storm

02:42:55.950 --> 02:42:57.810
down the left flank.

02:42:57.990 --> 02:43:01.590
You always wanted to see Cafu or Michel
Salgado make an overlapping run.

02:43:02.450 --> 02:43:06.387
The way Vieira stood there as the
defensive midfielder or somebody like

02:43:06.470 --> 02:43:10.070
Maldini or like Rio Ferdinand
or somebody like that,

02:43:10.630 --> 02:43:14.127
you wanted to watch Casillas
in goal. So, you know, for

02:43:14.210 --> 02:43:17.710
me, and maybe for our generation,
those players had something special.

02:43:18.090 --> 02:43:22.067
- Can you try to explain what charisma is?
Like you said, there are good players,

02:43:22.150 --> 02:43:23.287
and then there is Zidane.

02:43:23.370 --> 02:43:28.101
- It's very difficult to explain.
You either have it or you don't.

02:43:28.184 --> 02:43:29.570
Personality, right?

02:43:29.690 --> 02:43:33.380
- Yes, but there are so many different
forms of it. Zidane, in a way,

02:43:33.750 --> 02:43:36.030
almost moved slowly, in a way.

02:43:36.550 --> 02:43:40.100
- But he'd carry the ball from midfield
into attack incredibly quickly.

02:43:40.750 --> 02:43:44.210
So it's very hard to put into
words, hard to explain it.

02:43:44.930 --> 02:43:48.627
- And both Ronaldos had that. I mean,
the Brazilian Ronaldo too, the way he

02:43:48.710 --> 02:43:52.317
played in those World Cups.
It was just phenomenal.

02:43:52.400 --> 02:43:56.287
- '98, 2002.
Even in 2006 when he was already

02:43:56.370 --> 02:44:00.317
past his peak. He was so fascinating to
watch. Seriously, how many people turned

02:44:00.400 --> 02:44:04.180
on their TVs just to watch Ronaldo?
People knew that was it, that in

02:44:04.280 --> 02:44:08.017
2010 he wouldn't be playing.
And even in 2006, he wasn't

02:44:08.100 --> 02:44:11.997
really in his prime. But still, so many

02:44:12.080 --> 02:44:17.500
people turned on the TV just to watch
him play. And Zidane, 2006 was really,

02:44:18.580 --> 02:44:21.950
you know, the peak of that whole
generation of legends that had been

02:44:22.034 --> 02:44:26.477
building since '98, 2000,
2002, and '04. All the cream of

02:44:26.560 --> 02:44:30.360
the crop came in. Most of them
weren't at their physical peak anymore,

02:44:30.640 --> 02:44:34.390
but the names were still there.
Honestly, I think that

02:44:35.840 --> 02:44:39.377
for football fans, I'd recommend
just looking up the teams and the

02:44:39.460 --> 02:44:42.040
lineups from the 2006 World Cup.

02:44:43.300 --> 02:44:47.100
Look at the rosters. Every single
team had stars you wanted to watch.

02:44:48.400 --> 02:44:52.220
- Speaking of teams, what style
of football do you like? You prefer short

02:44:52.340 --> 02:44:55.100
passing, long balls, individual plays,

02:44:55.940 --> 02:44:59.337
you know, like Maradona carrying
the ball or, of course, Cristiano

02:44:59.420 --> 02:45:02.527
Ronaldo taking the ball
and scoring himself?

02:45:02.610 --> 02:45:04.610
- Mostly those who take the initiative.

02:45:05.200 --> 02:45:05.797
- You like that?

02:45:05.880 --> 02:45:09.580
- Yeah, definitely. I like players
who are willing to take the initiative.

02:45:09.920 --> 02:45:13.617
I was recently talking to Zlatan
about this, and he said, "It drives me

02:45:13.700 --> 02:45:17.810
crazy when I have players on my team
who, when you pass them the ball,

02:45:18.700 --> 02:45:22.557
they immediately get rid of it.
They don't want to take the initiative."

02:45:22.640 --> 02:45:26.537
When you have three or more players
on the team, if there are three people on

02:45:26.620 --> 02:45:30.417
the team who are not afraid to make
mistakes, that's usually enough. They

02:45:30.500 --> 02:45:34.197
take the initiative, take control
of the game, drive the team forward, make

02:45:34.280 --> 02:45:38.077
mistakes, but they keep trying.
And then there are others who hide, he

02:45:38.160 --> 02:45:40.867
says. They get the ball
and immediately pass it to someone else.

02:45:40.950 --> 02:45:42.200
Just don't give it to me.

02:45:42.520 --> 02:45:47.000
Not me. Not me. They just want
to get rid of the ball. It's like...

02:45:48.760 --> 02:45:52.597
You know, it's like something one
of Zidane's coaches once said. If you

02:45:52.680 --> 02:45:58.640
don't know what to do with the ball, give
it to Zidane. He'll figure it out, so...

02:45:59.500 --> 02:46:02.980
You see, that's the thing. It's a quality

02:46:03.840 --> 02:46:08.130
not every player has.
You're taking the ball.

02:46:09.020 --> 02:46:11.970
You're taking responsibility.
You're taking the initiative.

02:46:13.040 --> 02:46:16.500
You are not afraid to fail.
You're not afraid to make a mistake.

02:46:16.680 --> 02:46:20.617
Cristiano had a moment like that.
He missed a penalty, and later in

02:46:20.700 --> 02:46:23.200
the same match, he stepped
up to take another one.

02:46:24.100 --> 02:46:27.937
Think about that. You take the first
penalty. You miss it. Then another

02:46:28.020 --> 02:46:31.897
penalty comes along, and you still
step up to take it. Because if you miss

02:46:31.980 --> 02:46:34.997
two penalties in the same game,
you're under a lot of pressure, right?

02:46:35.080 --> 02:46:35.657
But that's the

02:46:35.740 --> 02:46:38.777
point. You're not afraid to fail.
As a leader, you take the initiative,

02:46:38.860 --> 02:46:39.597
and you're

02:46:39.680 --> 02:46:43.760
you're willing to take risks. That's
honestly the beauty of it, the beauty of

02:46:44.880 --> 02:46:48.637
sports in general. The bigger the risk,
the bigger the potential for greatness.

02:46:48.720 --> 02:46:51.520
If there's no risk, then there's no...

02:46:53.160 --> 02:46:56.817
You can't make, can't put yourself
in the category of athletes

02:46:56.900 --> 02:46:59.500
people will talk about
as some of the best ever.

02:47:00.900 --> 02:47:04.940
- Especially when it's a high-level
game like the World Cup and...

02:47:05.800 --> 02:47:09.100
- Yes. The more risk, the sweeter
the victory. There must be risk.

02:47:09.280 --> 02:47:13.137
- That's why they often speak
of Maradona as a great player. There are

02:47:13.220 --> 02:47:16.417
many great players.
He's great- - One of them, yeah

02:47:16.500 --> 02:47:20.437
-...for many reasons. But one reason
is that he kinda, kinda carried the

02:47:20.520 --> 02:47:24.170
team on his shoulders. - He took
the initiative and carried them. That's,

02:47:25.120 --> 02:47:28.638
that's when he led Napoli, you know?
When he led Napoli to the league title.

02:47:28.721 --> 02:47:29.077
Who knew

02:47:29.160 --> 02:47:35.630
Napoli then? Maradona came from Barcelona
to Napoli and made them champions,

02:47:36.140 --> 02:47:40.017
and the whole stadium was named after him.
Many guys played in Napoli, but there

02:47:40.100 --> 02:47:43.997
was never anyone like Maradona.
And recently, I

02:47:44.080 --> 02:47:47.360
saw somewhere,
or I think someone pointed out,

02:47:50.180 --> 02:47:52.980
the pressure on the guys who
are transferring to Napoli.

02:47:54.140 --> 02:47:56.990
Whoever you are, you will
always be in Maradona's shadow,

02:47:57.420 --> 02:48:01.337
and you stay in the shadow because
fans will never give you the

02:48:01.420 --> 02:48:05.217
credit you might deserve because
they will always compare you to

02:48:05.300 --> 02:48:09.080
him. Are you Maradona or not?
And if you're not Maradona,

02:48:09.320 --> 02:48:11.640
you will never get full recognition.

02:48:11.780 --> 02:48:14.843
- I want to say that one of the things
that makes Messi great, I think,

02:48:14.927 --> 02:48:15.657
is that he really

02:48:15.740 --> 02:48:19.840
had to live in such a shadow of Maradona,
and especially with the World Cup.

02:48:20.860 --> 02:48:23.037
- Yes. - It's not easy.
- And he came out of it.

02:48:23.120 --> 02:48:24.797
- Hard to emerge from that shadow.

02:48:24.880 --> 02:48:29.352
- Yes. And he won the World
Cup, yeah. In that sense,

02:48:29.435 --> 02:48:32.100
you have to give Messi his due.

02:48:33.240 --> 02:48:38.177
I'm addressing the Real Madrid fans now.
Ours, yours, both sides.

02:48:38.260 --> 02:48:39.157
- You're explaining it to them.

02:48:39.240 --> 02:48:44.900
- Yeah, yeah. - I got you. - Most of them,
I think even if they don't like Barcelona,

02:48:45.860 --> 02:48:47.810
they still recognize Messi's greatness.

02:48:48.160 --> 02:48:53.000
- I know that you met Zlatan. You talked
to him. I think he's one of the most,

02:48:54.340 --> 02:48:55.640
most self-confident people

02:48:56.540 --> 02:49:00.457
in football, in the world in general. What
do you think about this confidence? Of

02:49:00.540 --> 02:49:04.880
course, he's joking around a little bit,
but I think he really believes in himself.

02:49:05.720 --> 02:49:07.270
- Well, yeah, he does. He does.

02:49:07.800 --> 02:49:11.577
I've known Zlatan for years now.
We get along well, and I know

02:49:11.660 --> 02:49:15.520
his kids, and I like his personality.
I like his confidence.

02:49:15.820 --> 02:49:17.320
I mean, he's a unique player.

02:49:18.700 --> 02:49:21.682
There are not many Zlatans in football.
You know, wherever he played,

02:49:21.765 --> 02:49:22.615
he always scored.

02:49:23.200 --> 02:49:25.900
He's a goal scorer.
He is that kind of center forward,

02:49:26.340 --> 02:49:29.940
and he always carried the team.
He was a leader wherever he transferred.

02:49:30.620 --> 02:49:34.377
It doesn't matter. Milan, Inter,
Juventus, when he moved to LA

02:49:34.460 --> 02:49:36.580
Galaxy or Paris Saint-Germain.

02:49:38.040 --> 02:49:41.960
He was a leader everywhere he went,
with the national team, with his clubs.

02:49:42.280 --> 02:49:45.780
He was always the guy driving the team
forward, taking the initiative.

02:49:46.660 --> 02:49:50.537
And honestly, he cemented his
place as one of the greatest

02:49:50.620 --> 02:49:55.700
players to ever play the game.
And yeah, maybe he was...

02:49:57.580 --> 02:50:01.420
When it comes to trophies, not
individual achievements, but team honors,

02:50:01.840 --> 02:50:03.060
Sweden wasn't such a

02:50:03.900 --> 02:50:07.900
Wasn't exactly the greatest team,
and some of the clubs he played for

02:50:09.900 --> 02:50:15.820
didn't always win the biggest
trophies. But as an athlete,

02:50:16.760 --> 02:50:22.540
as an individual, as a person,
he is a very strong athlete.

02:50:23.820 --> 02:50:27.717
- We talked a lot about Dagestan, talked
a lot about America. You're in Dubai

02:50:27.800 --> 02:50:31.700
a lot these days. Do you like
it there? Also, you have spoken

02:50:33.380 --> 02:50:34.980
very highly about Sheikh Hamdan.

02:50:36.280 --> 02:50:40.057
What do you like about Dubai? What do you
like about this region? And what do you

02:50:40.140 --> 02:50:42.080
respect about Sheikh Hamdan?

02:50:43.340 --> 02:50:47.277
- Our team's been in Dubai for seven
to eight years now. We train at the

02:50:47.360 --> 02:50:51.210
Nad Al Sheba Sports Complex.
The NAS Sports Complex,

02:50:51.320 --> 02:50:57.240
this is under Sheikh Hamdan's office. It's
like his home, his place. We train there,

02:50:58.160 --> 02:51:00.000
we eat there, we live there.

02:51:00.840 --> 02:51:07.840
Sheikh Hamdan helps us with everything and
takes care of us. The way he treats us,

02:51:09.180 --> 02:51:16.180
what he does for us, his support is just
limitless. He supports us in everything,

02:51:17.720 --> 02:51:19.535
and it's not just one,
two, or three years.

02:51:19.618 --> 02:51:21.568
It's already been seven or eight years.

02:51:23.220 --> 02:51:28.080
And I am very, very grateful to him.
The way he welcomed us,

02:51:29.920 --> 02:51:36.267
took us in, and helped us, continues
to help, it's hard to put it into words

02:51:36.350 --> 02:51:43.350
how grateful we are. Our entire team
is very grateful to him, and he knows it.

02:51:43.483 --> 02:51:46.800
So in general, Dubai has
become... Actually, the

02:51:48.500 --> 02:51:52.460
Emirates, Dubai, and Abu
Dhabi have become like a

02:51:52.600 --> 02:51:56.340
second home for us.
And so it happened that over the

02:51:57.260 --> 02:52:01.117
last six or seven years,
the UFC has been holding events in

02:52:01.200 --> 02:52:04.987
Abu Dhabi, and the PFL has
been putting on events in

02:52:05.070 --> 02:52:09.000
Dubai. These are two of the biggest
MMA organizations in the world,

02:52:09.480 --> 02:52:13.397
and a lot of our guys compete there.
We arrive before the fight, we

02:52:13.480 --> 02:52:15.760
stay, we do training camps, they compete.

02:52:16.940 --> 02:52:21.480
We are incredibly fortunate that we
have support at the government level.

02:52:22.760 --> 02:52:26.257
In Abu Dhabi, we've been supported
by Sheikh Mohammed, Sheikh

02:52:26.340 --> 02:52:33.000
Tahnoon, and Sheikh Mansour. And in Dubai,
Sheikh Hamdan has really taken us

02:52:33.100 --> 02:52:36.500
in like his own team,
like younger brothers.

02:52:37.280 --> 02:52:41.017
In that respect, we've been incredibly
fortunate, and our entire team is

02:52:41.100 --> 02:52:44.280
deeply grateful for their support.

02:52:44.940 --> 02:52:48.700
- And they've created a country that
has become one of the world's central

02:52:48.800 --> 02:52:51.080
hubs. People from everywhere travel there.

02:52:52.080 --> 02:52:55.777
- It's unique, right? The local
population is only around one and a half

02:52:55.860 --> 02:52:58.380
million people,
actually even less than that.

02:53:00.240 --> 02:53:03.760
But, you know, there's
such an influx of tourists,

02:53:04.100 --> 02:53:06.660
people, business people, major events,

02:53:07.480 --> 02:53:11.017
and everything happening in terms
of business and sports is just

02:53:11.100 --> 02:53:16.900
incredible. What's happening in Dubai
and Abu Dhabi is, it's like nothing else.

02:53:17.820 --> 02:53:21.737
The only places you could really compare
it to are major global cities like New

02:53:21.820 --> 02:53:25.557
York, London, Paris, Tokyo. But those are

02:53:25.640 --> 02:53:29.557
huge metropolitan areas
with populations of well over

02:53:29.640 --> 02:53:33.600
twenty million people, and they have
centuries of history behind them.

02:53:34.560 --> 02:53:40.600
And here, they've built cities, an entire
country really, in just a few decades

02:53:41.560 --> 02:53:48.270
and turned it into a kind of magnet.
It's like a magnet that attracts everyone.

02:53:49.540 --> 02:53:53.400
The country's location, its logistics,
the sheer number of people

02:53:53.500 --> 02:53:57.317
coming in, not just visiting,
but wanting to move there, live

02:53:57.400 --> 02:54:00.020
there, and start businesses,
it's remarkable.

02:54:01.000 --> 02:54:04.777
It's a unique place in today's world. With

02:54:04.860 --> 02:54:08.557
everything that's happening around
the globe right now, this country really

02:54:08.640 --> 02:54:13.380
stands out because of the opportunities
it offers. It's unique in that sense.

02:54:14.680 --> 02:54:18.160
- Now I'd like to ask you this. For you,

02:54:19.080 --> 02:54:25.680
your Muslim faith and God, it's obviously
central to your life and to who you are.

02:54:27.180 --> 02:54:30.580
Can you explain what role
God plays in your life?

02:54:32.980 --> 02:54:36.640
- Well, first of all,
I was born, raised, and brought up

02:54:37.320 --> 02:54:39.580
in a Muslim family, in a Muslim community.

02:54:44.080 --> 02:54:47.977
Since childhood, religion's always been
the most important thing for me. And

02:54:48.060 --> 02:54:51.440
when I say religion,
the first thing I mean is Salah,

02:54:51.680 --> 02:54:55.277
Namaz. And my entire
life in general, my daily

02:54:55.360 --> 02:54:59.057
routine, the way I lived,
trained, studied, and everything

02:54:59.140 --> 02:55:01.820
else has always been built around Salah.

02:55:03.300 --> 02:55:06.937
The rest was scheduled around it.
Even today, when I was

02:55:07.020 --> 02:55:10.677
choosing time for this podcast,
I knew we'd be talking for a couple of

02:55:10.760 --> 02:55:14.740
hours, so I deliberately picked
a time right after the midday prayer.

02:55:16.020 --> 02:55:19.640
I pray, come here, finish up here
with you, and then go pray again.

02:55:21.900 --> 02:55:25.657
That's how my life's been, and still is,
and that's how it will continue to

02:55:25.740 --> 02:55:29.417
be, I hope. I've always tried to

02:55:29.500 --> 02:55:33.400
organize my life around worship,
because first and foremost, my

02:55:33.520 --> 02:55:36.220
purpose in this life
is to worship the one God.

02:55:37.420 --> 02:55:43.800
Everything that happens after that is,
it's secondary, so to speak.

02:55:45.580 --> 02:55:49.470
And faith in God and learning
more and just striving to

02:55:49.560 --> 02:55:53.640
get closer to God, that continues
throughout our entire lives.

02:55:55.240 --> 02:56:02.240
So in that regard, I'm very grateful
to the Almighty for opening this door

02:56:05.380 --> 02:56:09.197
of understanding and reflection
for me, for helping me

02:56:09.280 --> 02:56:13.560
realize that we are all servants
of God and that our purpose

02:56:15.060 --> 02:56:21.617
in life is to serve one God. - And as you
were explaining that helped you in your

02:56:21.700 --> 02:56:25.097
career in the sense that, you know,

02:56:25.180 --> 02:56:28.630
psychologically, by keeping you
from letting success go to your head?

02:56:28.730 --> 02:56:33.407
- That helped me with everything.
I've always placed my only hope in

02:56:33.490 --> 02:56:34.400
the Almighty.

02:56:35.160 --> 02:56:39.097
Whatever situation I might face,
I've always believed that only the

02:56:39.180 --> 02:56:42.040
Almighty can truly make it easier for me.

02:56:43.420 --> 02:56:47.200
And when it comes to not
letting success go to your head,

02:56:47.500 --> 02:56:51.440
not becoming proud,
not becoming full of yourself,

02:56:51.880 --> 02:56:55.040
religion and my faith in Allah
have helped me with that too.

02:56:55.860 --> 02:57:01.440
I truly believe that only faith can help a
person get through life's hardest trials.

02:57:02.440 --> 02:57:09.440
And sometimes I think about people
who suffer the loss of a loved one,

02:57:10.680 --> 02:57:14.217
someone very close to them.
For example, when I lost my

02:57:14.300 --> 02:57:18.077
father, I remember thinking to myself,
"If I didn't believe in the

02:57:18.160 --> 02:57:20.760
Almighty, if I didn't have faith in God

02:57:22.540 --> 02:57:26.247
and understand that it was predestined,
that we all come into

02:57:26.330 --> 02:57:29.940
this world and then leave it,
that no one stays here forever,

02:57:30.800 --> 02:57:34.420
that no one belongs to anyone,
and we all belong to the Almighty,

02:57:34.720 --> 02:57:38.637
and that we will all return to Him,
I don't know how I would have coped with

02:57:38.720 --> 02:57:42.457
it." I'm a very emotional person.
I think it would have

02:57:42.540 --> 02:57:46.500
been extremely difficult for me to go
through all of that without faith.

02:57:47.480 --> 02:57:50.430
In that sense, I feel fortunate
to have this understanding.

02:57:51.280 --> 02:57:55.600
- So faith really helped you
when you lost your father?

02:57:57.230 --> 02:58:00.180
- This was the only thing that helped.
Nothing else worked.

02:58:00.520 --> 02:58:05.260
I know a couple of people who have
lost someone very close to them,

02:58:07.520 --> 02:58:14.520
and they struggle to accept it. They would
ask, "Why? Why? Why?" So many questions.

02:58:16.300 --> 02:58:19.817
I told them, to answer that question,
you need to go deeper into

02:58:19.900 --> 02:58:22.040
religion and try to understand

02:58:23.280 --> 02:58:26.957
why were you even born in the first place,
and why do these thoughts even come

02:58:27.040 --> 02:58:30.757
into your head? And what if you didn't
have any thoughts at all? What if you

02:58:30.840 --> 02:58:34.037
couldn't think, couldn't
understand anything? These

02:58:34.120 --> 02:58:37.997
thoughts, this awareness,
your mind, your abilities, none of

02:58:38.080 --> 02:58:41.600
that was there before.
Then it appeared. Why?

02:58:42.380 --> 02:58:46.220
That's the question. None of us existed.
Then we were born. We were little.

02:58:46.320 --> 02:58:48.976
We weren't aware of anything.
We didn't remember anything.

02:58:49.059 --> 02:58:52.400
Then little by little,
we grew up and became adults.

02:58:53.880 --> 02:58:57.640
We became successful, became
somebody. We became who we are.

02:58:58.100 --> 02:59:01.657
So why did all of this come
specifically to you? There are so many

02:59:01.740 --> 02:59:03.700
questions like that. And so

02:59:05.200 --> 02:59:12.080
these questions are, let's say,
a kind of guide through life. And for me

02:59:12.900 --> 02:59:15.980
that's what religion is.
It guides me and helps me.

02:59:17.840 --> 02:59:20.860
- You often say, "Alhamdulillah,

02:59:21.980 --> 02:59:26.320
all praise to God." That's very powerful,
that sense of gratitude. Can you tell us,

02:59:27.500 --> 02:59:29.500
can you explain why you say it so often?

02:59:31.040 --> 02:59:34.390
- You know the saying, the tongue
speaks what the heart is full of.

02:59:36.360 --> 02:59:39.977
The way you speak shows what's
in your heart. If you have

02:59:40.060 --> 02:59:43.260
something dark in your heart,
your words will show it, no doubt.

02:59:43.960 --> 02:59:47.460
We all have some dark parts in our hearts.

02:59:48.840 --> 02:59:52.160
Every single person has them.
Sometimes they come out in

02:59:53.940 --> 03:00:00.440
what we say, how we express ourselves,
what we share with people, and so on.

03:00:01.500 --> 03:00:05.010
Everyone has that.
But if your heart is mostly good and pure,

03:00:05.460 --> 03:00:10.520
then that will also be
reflected in your speech. And

03:00:12.140 --> 03:00:16.077
And I just like praising
the Almighty and giving all the

03:00:16.160 --> 03:00:20.820
credit for my success back to Him because

03:00:22.180 --> 03:00:25.477
everything we have is given to us
by the Almighty. Throughout the

03:00:25.560 --> 03:00:29.417
history, there have been many
people who made big mistakes after

03:00:29.500 --> 03:00:33.077
becoming successful,
powerful, and wealthy, and they

03:00:33.160 --> 03:00:39.340
started saying, "No, no, this happened to
me because I'm so great, because I'm so,

03:00:41.860 --> 03:00:45.777
I'm so intelligent, because
I had vision, because I've

03:00:45.860 --> 03:00:49.677
got the brains, because I'm
extremely capable. That's why

03:00:49.760 --> 03:00:53.377
all of this came my way."
But at the same time, there were many

03:00:53.460 --> 03:00:59.740
others who worked just as hard,
who weren't any less intelligent,

03:01:00.140 --> 03:01:05.500
and the Almighty just didn't give it
to them. He chose you and gave it to you,

03:01:06.180 --> 03:01:09.997
and you just have to give the credit back
to Him. You shouldn't take the credit for

03:01:10.080 --> 03:01:13.040
yourself. That's what I believe.

03:01:14.620 --> 03:01:18.000
And it's something I've come
to through studying my religion.

03:01:20.460 --> 03:01:24.357
I understand that everything the Almighty
has given to me is not because

03:01:24.440 --> 03:01:28.400
of who I am. It's simply something
God has given me as a test

03:01:29.020 --> 03:01:32.757
to test me and, in the end,
see which of my deeds outweigh the

03:01:32.840 --> 03:01:35.160
others, the good or the bad.

03:01:38.020 --> 03:01:41.840
Because as a believer,
I believe that there will be judgment

03:01:43.680 --> 03:01:46.920
and everything we have,
everything we do, every action we take,

03:01:48.540 --> 03:01:52.437
we will be held accountable
for it. There will be a day

03:01:52.520 --> 03:01:56.080
of judgment, there will be scales,
and everything will be weighed.

03:01:58.720 --> 03:02:05.160
- What advice would you give young
people about life and their careers?

03:02:06.640 --> 03:02:09.590
Millions of people are watching
you and deeply respect you.

03:02:11.440 --> 03:02:13.790
What would you say about
how to live your life?

03:02:15.040 --> 03:02:17.950
And how do you find
your path and stay on it?

03:02:19.620 --> 03:02:23.067
- Well, I wouldn't want to speak
just from my own perspective.

03:02:23.150 --> 03:02:24.460
I'd rather bring people

03:02:27.160 --> 03:02:30.920
back to the scripture,
to what the Almighty said, "Read."

03:02:31.940 --> 03:02:38.340
That's the first word revealed in the Holy
Quran. The first command is read or ikra.

03:02:39.740 --> 03:02:43.580
So to everyone listening to or
watching this podcast, I would want

03:02:43.680 --> 03:02:50.040
to bring them back to that. Read,
meaning what? Educate yourself, observe,

03:02:50.180 --> 03:02:57.180
learn, improve, but don't stay in one
place. And anything a person is truly

03:02:58.300 --> 03:03:02.077
looking for, if they genuinely
want to find it, not just

03:03:02.160 --> 03:03:06.037
find an answer, but find
the truth, they can reach

03:03:06.120 --> 03:03:10.040
it, but they can never reach
it without reading. They

03:03:10.140 --> 03:03:14.800
need to read. When a person reads,
what they read enters them

03:03:15.620 --> 03:03:19.900
into their body, their heart,
their mind, and it triggers a search.

03:03:21.140 --> 03:03:24.897
A search for knowledge begins inside them,
but if you don't read, you won't find

03:03:24.980 --> 03:03:28.870
anything. Just listening to someone
is one thing, but reading is something

03:03:28.960 --> 03:03:32.320
different. So my advice would be read

03:03:33.900 --> 03:03:37.837
and find within yourself
the strength to come closer to

03:03:37.920 --> 03:03:42.980
one God and seek to understand why
we were sent here in the first place.

03:03:45.740 --> 03:03:50.640
Today, you and me, we're
almost the same age. So let's

03:03:51.520 --> 03:03:57.160
just think about this. For example,
my grandfather on my mother's side

03:03:57.660 --> 03:04:04.620
passed away in two thousand and three.
Now it's twenty twenty-six.

03:04:06.120 --> 03:04:08.720
He's been lying in the grave
for twenty-three years.

03:04:11.140 --> 03:04:12.890
And then there was his grandfather,

03:04:13.340 --> 03:04:17.137
or let's say his great-grandfather
who also died and has been in the

03:04:17.220 --> 03:04:19.700
grave for over a hundred
years, roughly speaking.

03:04:21.620 --> 03:04:24.244
But what about people who
died two thousand years ago?

03:04:24.327 --> 03:04:28.240
They've been in the grave for two
thousand years. What's next?

03:04:30.220 --> 03:04:34.117
It's a good question, isn't it? They've
just been in the grave all this time, and

03:04:34.200 --> 03:04:35.033
that's it.

03:04:36.400 --> 03:04:40.197
So what was the purpose of their life?
A person has been in the grave for two

03:04:40.280 --> 03:04:43.260
thousand years, but maybe
lived for seventy years.

03:04:44.320 --> 03:04:48.217
Roughly speaking, let's say one hundred.
They lived for one hundred years

03:04:48.300 --> 03:04:50.500
and have been in the
grave for two thousand.

03:04:51.320 --> 03:04:53.610
So what matters more,
those one hundred years

03:04:55.140 --> 03:04:58.957
or these two thousand years?
And what happens after those two thousand

03:04:59.040 --> 03:05:02.937
years end? People believe different
things, whether there is a day

03:05:03.020 --> 03:05:06.897
of judgment or not. That's where
the difference lies between a believer and

03:05:06.980 --> 03:05:10.817
a non-believer. After everyone
is resurrected, there will be the day of

03:05:10.900 --> 03:05:14.497
judgment. There will be judgment,
and after that, people will

03:05:14.580 --> 03:05:17.980
enter eternity.
Eternity compared to eternity,

03:05:18.640 --> 03:05:22.290
what are two thousand years? They're
nothing. And we live for, let's say,

03:05:22.400 --> 03:05:29.400
seventy years. And many people choose
those seventy years over eternal life.

03:05:31.240 --> 03:05:35.077
And if a person understands
that these seventy years they have

03:05:35.160 --> 03:05:38.520
here, roughly speaking,
seventy or eighty years

03:05:40.940 --> 03:05:44.757
are meant to be used to prepare
for what comes after, so that when the

03:05:44.840 --> 03:05:48.076
day of judgment arrives, and after
that judgment they can live forever,

03:05:48.159 --> 03:05:52.777
not in hell, but in heaven. If that
becomes their ultimate goal, then they

03:05:52.860 --> 03:05:57.540
will strive to do good deeds because
they will fear the day of judgment.

03:05:58.370 --> 03:06:01.899
And that's really what life is about,
preparing yourself for the day

03:06:01.982 --> 03:06:02.816
of judgment.

03:06:03.570 --> 03:06:07.377
- That's true. To truly understand life
and its deeper meaning, you have to think

03:06:07.460 --> 03:06:12.800
about eternity. Only then can
you really understand your role.

03:06:13.100 --> 03:06:18.600
- Actually, it can keep a person
away from evil. From evil and,

03:06:20.740 --> 03:06:23.440
and it can stop them from
treating other people badly.

03:06:24.580 --> 03:06:28.357
It can hold a person back. But if you
don't have that understanding, if a

03:06:28.440 --> 03:06:31.790
person lives completely convinced
that there's nothing after death,

03:06:32.260 --> 03:06:36.177
what's there to stop him from doing evil?
Just like that. What do

03:06:36.260 --> 03:06:40.480
you think? And on top of that,
an even more dangerous combination.

03:06:42.140 --> 03:06:47.600
You become powerful, wealthy,
and you become famous. What now?

03:06:49.320 --> 03:06:53.060
Suddenly every door is open to you.
Just imagine a person like that.

03:06:53.620 --> 03:06:57.480
And on top of all that, he doesn't
believe in the day of judgment.

03:06:58.020 --> 03:07:01.897
He doesn't believe he'll be held
accountable for his actions. That's, you

03:07:01.980 --> 03:07:07.500
know, it's like a nuclear bomb. He can
end up causing harm to people everywhere.

03:07:08.720 --> 03:07:12.217
But if you know that for
everything you have here, you'll

03:07:12.300 --> 03:07:16.160
eventually have to answer,
that there will be a day of judgment

03:07:16.420 --> 03:07:20.277
and that you'll be called to account,
and if you fail that test, you'll

03:07:20.360 --> 03:07:24.200
burn in hell forever. That'll
make you rein yourself in a little.

03:07:25.940 --> 03:07:28.171
You'll have to take
that into consideration.

03:07:28.255 --> 03:07:32.440
You'll have to tighten things up a little.
You'll begin to understand

03:07:34.220 --> 03:07:37.957
that you're not nearly as important
as the image you've created of

03:07:38.040 --> 03:07:44.009
yourself in your own mind.
You start becoming more, as Americans say,

03:07:44.092 --> 03:07:45.320
down to earth.

03:07:45.440 --> 03:07:50.100
You become more grounded. You're not
flying, you're walking on the ground.

03:07:50.580 --> 03:07:52.160
- You once put it beautifully.

03:07:54.260 --> 03:07:59.120
You can allow money and fame to stay
in your hand, but not in your heart.

03:08:01.960 --> 03:08:05.717
You've still got many years ahead of you,
but you're already an example of

03:08:05.800 --> 03:08:11.077
someone who's become famous,
made money, and remained the same person.

03:08:11.160 --> 03:08:13.860
- If money stays in your
hands and not in your heart

03:08:14.770 --> 03:08:18.138
That's a good thing. But the moment
it gets into a person's heart,

03:08:18.221 --> 03:08:19.110
it corrupts them.

03:08:19.270 --> 03:08:23.127
Once it's there, it's very difficult
to pull it out of your heart. If you have

03:08:23.210 --> 03:08:26.727
wealth in your hands
and use it properly for good

03:08:26.810 --> 03:08:30.667
causes, for the right purposes,
for people in need, for

03:08:30.750 --> 03:08:35.750
your family, relatives, friends,
people from your hometown,

03:08:36.810 --> 03:08:40.687
that's a good thing. But as soon as that
wealth gets into your heart, it becomes

03:08:40.770 --> 03:08:44.627
very difficult to share
it with others. And this

03:08:44.710 --> 03:08:49.770
is a very dangerous place
for a person to end up.

03:08:50.790 --> 03:08:54.527
And I'm sorry, but as a believer,
I believe that most people in

03:08:54.610 --> 03:08:56.230
hell will be wealthy.

03:08:59.030 --> 03:09:02.025
- One of the reasons millions of people
find you so interesting to watch is

03:09:02.108 --> 03:09:02.942
that you're

03:09:03.810 --> 03:09:10.810
constantly growing. First, you were
a great fighter. Now you're becoming a

03:09:11.110 --> 03:09:15.150
leader. Your wisdom just keeps increasing.

03:09:16.110 --> 03:09:20.030
You're evolving as a person, but still
the core values remain. It's good to

03:09:20.130 --> 03:09:21.430
see, inspiring for people.

03:09:22.270 --> 03:09:26.167
Money and fame haven't changed you.
You're just growing as a human

03:09:26.250 --> 03:09:27.830
being, as you always have.

03:09:28.350 --> 03:09:32.147
- I hope it's in the right direction. It's
just, the thing is people only see the

03:09:32.230 --> 03:09:35.070
good. They don't see the bad.

03:09:35.470 --> 03:09:39.650
And we all have the good side
and the bad side. Everyone, sadly.

03:09:41.210 --> 03:09:43.410
And especially when it
comes to celebrities,

03:09:44.430 --> 03:09:47.410
we only show the best side of ourselves.

03:09:48.410 --> 03:09:51.910
Even when you post photos,
you only post the good ones,

03:09:52.490 --> 03:09:57.570
the pictures where you look
your best. So I hope that

03:09:58.950 --> 03:10:05.950
the way people see me, as you
pointed out, is the way I really am,

03:10:07.790 --> 03:10:11.487
because it's difficult to judge
yourself objectively. You're always

03:10:11.570 --> 03:10:15.410
biased when it comes to yourself.
That's how it is. We tend to think highly

03:10:15.510 --> 03:10:18.990
of ourselves, right? You can't
really see yourself objectively.

03:10:20.610 --> 03:10:24.570
We hide our flaws and put
our best qualities on display.

03:10:25.550 --> 03:10:30.150
Sometimes people even start believing
in a fake version of themselves.

03:10:33.270 --> 03:10:36.907
For me, I try to stay
on the honest path throughout my

03:10:36.990 --> 03:10:42.130
life to remain true to who
I really am and to show

03:10:43.550 --> 03:10:47.490
my true self to people.
Maybe not everyone agrees with my

03:10:47.590 --> 03:10:51.970
behavior, my opinions,
my worldview, or my attitudes toward,

03:10:53.810 --> 03:10:58.390
towards sports, religion, and other
things. Not everyone shares my views.

03:10:59.370 --> 03:11:02.770
Not everyone is a fan of mine.
There are people who,

03:11:04.830 --> 03:11:09.490
let's say, see me very
differently. So I'm just...

03:11:12.290 --> 03:11:16.690
I've tried, I continue to try
to be who I am. That's all.

03:11:18.690 --> 03:11:23.090
And I hope that my ending
will be a good one, too.

03:11:24.350 --> 03:11:27.460
Well, you know, at least that's my hope.

03:11:28.330 --> 03:11:32.107
- You've stayed the same, but you've
also grown. I mean, today you even

03:11:32.190 --> 03:11:38.370
managed to say something nice about Barça.
So see, that's progress. Yeah. Well done.

03:11:39.210 --> 03:11:42.075
- Come on, without Barcelona,
there wouldn't be Real Madrid.

03:11:42.158 --> 03:11:43.147
If the Spanish league

03:11:43.230 --> 03:11:47.087
didn't have either Real Madrid or
Barcelona, it just wouldn't be the same.

03:11:47.170 --> 03:11:50.967
They've been competing against each other
for how many years? One hundred twenty.

03:11:51.050 --> 03:11:53.971
It's hard to imagine Barcelona
and Real Madrid without each other,

03:11:54.054 --> 03:11:56.790
and so is the Spanish
league without that rivalry.

03:11:57.030 --> 03:12:00.967
It's impossible to imagine. So yeah,
we have to give you some credit, but Real

03:12:01.050 --> 03:12:05.830
Madrid is the royal club.
Come on. It's the best. You know?

03:12:06.410 --> 03:12:10.029
- And thanks to both of them, we've been
able to enjoy truly incredible football

03:12:10.112 --> 03:12:12.362
for so many years.
- For so many years, yeah.

03:12:12.990 --> 03:12:17.540
- Um, Khabib, brother, I don't
even have the words to explain

03:12:18.850 --> 03:12:22.727
how honored I am that you're here talking
with me today and showing me so much

03:12:22.810 --> 03:12:23.643
warmth.

03:12:24.800 --> 03:12:27.761
There's no way to fully express what
you mean to millions of your fans around

03:12:27.845 --> 03:12:30.558
the world, including me.
Thank you so much for everything.

03:12:30.641 --> 03:12:32.127
Thank you for this conversation.

03:12:32.210 --> 03:12:34.110
- Thank you. Thank you very much, Lex.

03:12:35.110 --> 03:12:38.820
- Thank you for listening to this
conversation with Khabib Nurmagomedov.

03:12:38.903 --> 03:12:39.737
And again,

03:12:40.370 --> 03:12:47.270
thank you for everything. I love you all.
Goodbye, my friends. See you next time.