Dagestan's dominance in combat sports is driven primarily by world-class coaching, a brutal cultural tradition, and the hunger that comes from hardship.

2:03water. And yet, this humble little gym managed to raise more than twenty world champions, including several UFC champions. Can you try to explain or maybe reflect on what factors in that gym, those training sessions, that life in Dagestan created so many champions? - Sure. So we're talking about the gym, the one located in Makhachkala. And Makhachkala, for the people who don't know, it's the capital of Dagestan. This was back around the years from two thousand to two

2:37thousand and ten, and even later on. In twenty nineteen, we opened up a big gym, a major facility that is still functioning to this day. But before twenty nineteen, we all actually trained in that gym where there was practically nothing. It was just a school gym with nothing but mats, a single punching bag, one climbing rope, and a kind of indoor basketball court. And if we go even further back, before two thousand, before we moved to

3:08Makhachkala, we lived in a village. In the village, we had a gym right inside our house. My father, he built a gym at home, and he was training all the local village kids right there. And there were times back when I was a child, let's say when I was maybe six or seven years old, I would occasionally wake up to the sound of, people training, doing their drills right there in the gym.

3:34You know, like with judo or freestyle when they're drilling, one guy throwing another. Those are my first conscious memories. I was maybe five, six, seven years old at that time. So my father set up this gym in the village and trained local kids, including me, my older brother, and all our close and distant relatives, anyone who wanted to come. A lot of kids came to him. - So you would wake up and there are these sounds.

4:00- Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You hear the hitting, the throwing over and over. And my father's voice, how he's shouting, giving instructions, pushing someone, coaching, teaching. I lived with those sounds. But that was in the village. And later when we moved to Makhachkala, well, you couldn't say the gym there was wow either. There were only mats. And of course, the most valuable thing an athlete can have, a coach, my father. So he trained us there.

4:33And to be honest, let's say, until I became a champion and had big success, we never had a good big gym where we could, you know, all take a shower together at the same time after training. We always had just one shower for everyone, no proper amenities. - So your life story began in the mountains of Dagestan in Sildi, then Kirovaul, and then Makhachkala. And in all these situations, there are very interesting stories. But

5:06one of the things I heard you say is that the best results are born out of the worst conditions. What can you say about that? Philosophically, is it correct to say that comfort is kind of the enemy for champions? - It depends on the sport. For example, let's say in football, you have to have conditions. You can't really play if there is practically no field. Of course, you can play in the dirt, and it happens sometimes. You

5:31can start there. But when you are ten or twelve years old, you already have to be at a certain level. You must have conditions. But if we look at our sport, then what is the most important thing? The coach. You also need sparring partners who will push you in the gym, as they say, right? And you need the mats. Our sport is not expensive. You just buy your