“Everything must have changed when Khamzat broke his arm.” Chimaev’s coach describes victory against former UFC champion

34 years old Azamat Dugulubgov began performing in the United States in 2011, fought eight fights, was about to fight with Justin Gaethje (Khabib’s last opponent in the UFC), but ended his career due to problems cardiac. Now that the Russian fighter has his own gym in New Jersey, Dugulubgov brought Jalin Turner into the top 15 of the lightweight division and suddenly began training with Khamzat Chimaev. At UFC 294, Chimaev defeated Kamaru Usman in the welterweight category by decision of the judges, and Dugulubgov supervised the Russian’s preparation for several weeks and was second during the fight.

Next, Azamat and I will try to determine what kind of fight it was: difficult two rounds out of three with an opponent entering the fight underweight, having two weeks of preparation and on a two-loss streak; or a victory over a fighter who in September 2021 was considered the best in the UFC, regardless of weight categories.

— You said you met Chimaev in Dubai in April-May and trained with him and with your student Jalin Turner. How did you become the head trainer of Khamzat, how were you asked to prepare for the fight with Usman?

“We agreed on our personalities, our views on fighting and decided that we could join forces. That is, we communicated throughout this communication and this idea grew from this communication.

It’s very interesting to train with one of the most unusual fighters in MMA, I enjoyed the work. As a coach, I prepared myself for the different twists and turns of this fight, I prepared myself for different situations and different times. And he tried to give the best instructions to his fighter.

— Did you have to significantly change your training plan after replacing the injured Paolo Costa with Kamaru Usman?

— The majority of Costa’s strikes are amplitude strikes. And Usman almost always hits in the center, in the middle. This greatly affects your game plan, but again, Khamzat is such an athlete, so functional and varied, with such an arsenal of tools, that it wasn’t difficult. We just had to change a few things, adapt to the new opponent.

At the same time, we had to adapt to one of the best fighters in MMA history. Kamaru Usman dominated his weight, he defeated his opponents with a goal. He lost his last fights. But now he was in one of his best forms. Although someone said he fought 11 days before the tournament, those people were wrong. Kamaru trained and prepared. And there were still a few fighters ready to replace the other guys.

— In the first round, Khamzat took a good position and spent almost the entire round there, he was able to play several times. And in the second and third there was a dangerous standing exchange. Why is there such a difference between the towers?

“Everything had to change when Khamzat broke his hand in the first round. A lot of things happened immediately from that. I myself had my first fight in the WSOF league, when I broke my hand in the first round and had to change tactics and adapt to a new mindset. And I roughly understand what Khamzat was going through. As a man, he was able to control himself and redirect his fighting style in a different direction. He slowly recovered and fought well.

– How did you understand that his arm was broken, he came into the corner and told you directly?

“The fighter himself understands that something is wrong as the round progresses. We around here don’t know that. And Khamzat extremely rarely shows that he suffers, he simply has a huge threshold in this sense. And during the break we started to explain some combinations to him, but he shook his hand and didn’t say anything. Then we realized something was wrong. And we had to use weapons from the arsenal, which we prepared just in case of injury or problems in combat.

— We don’t know if surgery will be necessary after a fracture?

— I think in 2-3 days it will become clear. We haven’t communicated yet, he left immediately for Chechnya, I’m in Dubai. I would like to rewatch the fight, as I usually do, when you can watch, stop a position and immediately make some adjustments.

— What worried Kamaru Usman the most in the technical actions?

“His jab and his cross, like I said, he hits shots from the middle well. And we understood that he had extensive experience and would stick to his strategy. He is psychologically very stable to stick to the line he has chosen.

— Chimaev spent almost the entire first round behind Usman’s back. Why couldn’t he strangle himself? Because the defense against a rear choke has been completely dismantled?

– I’ll be honest… the way Khamzat distances himself in training and the techniques he masters are not what you saw here. Apparently he was in a bit of a hurry, he wanted to finish the battle faster. He didn’t even show 50% of what he could do from the back. Most likely he broke his finger at first before he got his back, something was wrong. And on the technical level, he did not give the best of himself. He should have gone a little lower, placed his head a little closer to his shoulder blades, he was sitting too high. And place your head on the left or right, not in the middle. Fix some things in the leg position, then load his head to get a reaction and open his chin. And, when, for example, Kamaru had both hands on the ground, he should have done a technique called cup in English, cupping his face (shows how he raises his chin with a cupped palm. – ), open your chin and put your hands on your neck. He does it in training with great confidence. And he does much more than that.

— Khamzat said it was difficult for him to concentrate because of the world situation. Did you feel it?

– Not me. He is very easy to work with. He is enjoying this fight, enjoying the stress of this fight week. I study the psychology of fighters a lot and he has psychological stability. It doesn’t matter if the training is good or bad. Some people think he has too much fire, but a fighter should be like that. We didn’t have such moments when we had to sit with him, cheer him up, he is always ready to give his best.

— There was a moment when he was making a pass, Kamaru failed and Khamzat put his head into the cage. Did you know this wouldn’t make him lose confidence?

– Yes of course. I did intensive training with him. From the time I spent with him, I realized that in this fight, he would ride his legs until he took them or died. I was sure of it.

— Khabib and Islam Makhachev’s trainer Javier Mendez said Makhachev is the only person in the gym to win rounds against Nurmagomedov. Is there anyone in the room winning rounds against Chimaev?

— The fact is that I structure my training a little differently. I don’t spend a lot of time analyzing who won the round. And 70% of the fights under my leadership take place when each fighter has a task. For example, in this round you must achieve 20 hits. No matter what happens to you, you need to take 20 injections to get a nosebleed. Then another task: you start the whole round only at the net. Or you start all the way around from the bottom. And here the importance of such an aspect as winning a round decreases, but the efficiency and attention to efficiency in a certain technique increases. Yes, there are days when the goal is to win the round. We do it too, but I can’t tell you who won and how many rounds against Chimaev. I’ll tell you one thing: I still haven’t seen people capable of surpassing him in physical and psychological endurance. You tell him to do 10 times, he’ll do 11. You can take a point from him in the first or second round, but he won’t come back stronger until the third or fourth. And his opponent will still say that enough is enough.

“There is also an opinion that Khamzat will not be able to pass five rounds.

“He can definitely do five rounds.” I think the main reason people now think he’s fight fatigue is because he has so many different techniques, but basically he only started doing MMA yesterday. By the standards of the sport, he is a young man. People don’t understand. He started training MMA at the age of 20. And look who he beat today. And he’s so physically gifted that he always comes out and just wants to destroy his opponents. If we move him away from this subject a little and give him the opportunity to fight with a slightly different strategy, he will only need 10 rounds. But he has so much confidence in his strength and character that he goes out and blurts it all out at once. 90% of fighters with the intensity he has won’t be able to last 1-2 rounds like that. It just gets to the point that it is not necessary to fire all the ammunition with a machine gun. You can pick up a gun and shoot accurately.

— His sparring partners are Chechens with a rather tough character and who know each other. Are there a lot of knockdowns in such sparring or, on the contrary, is everyone trying to work carefully?

– This happens almost every turn. Almost every turn, someone’s knees give out. He holds back, but he hits very hard.

— How many sparrings did you do per week?

— We trained three or two times a week. And a lot of struggle.

— What did you say to Khamzat before the third round?

“I had one recommendation: focus on Usman’s direct punches, so that he throws less swing punches and fights more. That’s right, I wanted it not to go to the legs, but to the chest. Khamzat makes excellent cross-chest throws, and Kamaru protects his legs well, and it takes a lot of energy to move him that way. But in any case, Khamzat hit the legs perfectly, took the round and won the fight.

—What did you talk about after the fight?

“Me and the entire coaching staff are not in favor of discussing the fight immediately afterwards. When everything is over, we will come back to the fight and discuss everything. The most important thing is that he is healthy, that there are no serious injuries. He left the arena alone, and that was the most important thing.

— The most interesting fight for him currently, which could take place in the UFC?

— Many fights are interesting for him now, and it seems to me that his rematch with Aliskerov would be good. If Ikram could prove he could fight for the belt (and Khamzat would win the title at that point), their fight would be interesting to see.

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