Khabib Nurmagomedov: commitment

Transcript context

…Okay. But when you were training in the gym, what was it that gave you this strength? A hatred of losing or a love for winning? I think it was the hatred of losing. Yes, definitely. I mean, you know, of course you want to win, but for me there was always this driver like, “No way. I am not losing,” you know. When they would give me a fight, I always tell this to my guys, whenever they would give me a fight on a professional level, 100 days before it I was… How do you say it? Addiction. I was fixated like when people have this addiction. But for me it was commitment, that I absolutely had to prepare perfectly for the fight. I couldn’t miss any training sessions. I would literally have, like, this panic. Like, for example, I’d fly somewhere and I have, let’s say, eighty-five days left until the fight. Like, I knew that I had to fly. For example, if I was flying to Moscow, I would always pick a ticket so I could absolutely do my morning training session first. Then I’d take off around lunchtime. And once I arrived in Moscow, for whatever reason, I had to fit it all around my training schedule. Either I had to meet up before my training sessions or I had to meet up after my training sessions. And I simply could not miss that evening training session because I had to train during the day from four to five hours, two in the morning and two to two and a half in the evening. And I needed to prepare myself that way. Looking at who was in Moscow right then, wondering who I could, like pull into a training session there. Well, they also had to– the person had to match my level as well. Not just like I showed up there, you know, played around with him. I needed a fight back. I would arrange in advance who was gonna come. Maybe some sparring, maybe I’d do wrestling, maybe I’d hit the weights, maybe a striking workout. So I had this, let’s say I always had this tough and scientific approach to it. So I believe that more than anything, I didn’t want to lose rather than I wanted to win, you know? Of course, winning is also a huge pleasure, but more than anything, I just didn’t want to lose. So in all those hard training sessions, you were thinking about not losing. That’s the fuel.…

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