When Khabib Nurmagomedov left the fight in October 2020, following the death of his father Abdulmanap just three months earlier, he did not enjoy a peaceful retirement. He walked into a team that suddenly needed someone to lead it. That someone turned out to be him.
Khabib Nurmagomedov on becoming a team leader
“Somehow, when I finished my career, I became the oldest on my team,” Khabib explained in a recent interview with World Sports Summit. “I have to take leadership. Who is going to take over? You can’t just leave them alone. I have to continue my father’s legacy.”
The transition was not something Khabib had anticipated, as he had been a student all his life. As a child growing up in Dagestan, he trained alongside wrestlers and fighters much older than him in his father’s gym, a room tucked away on the ground floor of their family home. There were rules, younger fighters were always wrong, older fighters were always right. That hierarchy existed for a reason. But when Abdulmanap died of COVID-19 complications at age 57, Khabib found himself on the other side of that equation.
He had no choice. “That’s not how it works,” he said of simply walking away. “Today I will be a success, I am a champion, I am on top. Okay, see you tomorrow.”
So Khabib took over the gym. Islam Makhachev, his cousin Umar, fellow fighter Usman, all younger, are all watching him now. The approach he brought was not provisional. When Khabib coaches, there is no discussion. “There is no freedom of speech. Everyone does what I say. There is no 50/50,” he said, describing his coaching style. “When I say in or out, there is no 50/50.”
Islam Makhachev, now the UFC lightweight champion, describes training camps under Khabib as brutally demanding but never arbitrary. Twelve rounds on the bags, 30 minutes of running and sparring the next morning. “If you want to become a champion, you have to follow the way champions did it,” Makhachev said. “He knows how it works.”
The irony is that Khabib openly admits this coaching is more difficult than fighting. “I didn’t know it would be so hard… This coaching life is completely different from fighting life. I can only talk. I can’t do anything. I can only give my brothers advice and stay out of the cage. This is not what I have done all my life. That’s why it gives me a bit of a headache.”
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