Khabib Nurmagomedov
Khabib Nurmagomedov is a Russian former professional mixed martial artist who competed in the Lightweight division of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, retiring with an undefeated 29-0 record as the longest-reigning UFC Lightweight Champion. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest mixed martial artists of all time and was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame in 2022. He is the founder of Eagles MMA and owner of the Eagle Fighting Championship promotion, and after retiring from active competition he became a prominent coach and mentor to fighters such as Islam Makhachev before stepping away from the sport entirely in January 2023 to focus on his family.
“A high-altitude training facility built in Khabib's ancestral village of Sildi, Dagestan, at 1,500–1,600 meters above sea level, capable of housing 100 athletes simultaneously for full training camps.”
Source→“At that time, for me, it was the best organization in the world. The best fighters in the world competed there.”
Source→“In Makashkala, let's say for combat sports, I'm not even counting like freestyle, wrestling, or other styles. There may be 40 or 50 gyms for combat sports, and all are full.”
Source→“I think it was the hatred of losing. Yes, definitely... whenever they would give me a fight on a professional level, a hundred days before it, I was — how do you say it? Addiction.”
Source→“I didn't care what anyone else thought. I didn't care tens of millions, hundreds of millions watching this fight. I only ever cared about one person and his take, what he thought and what he said to me.”
Source→“There are athletes who simply want to win. And then there are some for whom victory isn't enough. They want domination... For that, what does a person have to do? They have to train.”
Source→“They went in, stood for a year, a year and a half or two, and left. Nobody talks about them. These are the people who came in, broke mentally, and left.”
Source→AI-extracted from podcast / newsletter / paper summaries. May contain errors.