The UFC fighter trained in Miami, but chose a gym in Tver. Makiivka coach to make London tournament debut

Of all the current UFC fighters who speak Russian, Nikita Krylov debuted in the promotion before the others: on August 31, 2013. Unfortunately, according to Krylov, it is easy to follow not only the sporting events that took place during these nine years. The fighter was born between Donetsk and Lugansk and, as he himself says, has been leading a “nomadic way of life” since 2014. For eight years, Krylov trained in several halls of Moscow, went to battle in Saint -Petersburg, went through the snowdrifts in Nizhnevartovsk, came to train in Miami, “pushed the weight” of Boston sushi. Now Nikita spends most of her time in Tver in the gymnasium of her first trainer Valery Andreev.

Andreev trained in Makeevka (the nearest suburb of Donetsk), but in 2014 he moved to the Tver region. Krylov, who started with Kyokushin, says it was from Valery Nikolaevich that he began to fully learn mixed martial arts.

“I remember in the first practice I got up with a guy in sparring. I thought if he was a wrestler, I definitely wouldn’t lose to him in the standing position. And he already had experience in MMA, and, in general, even in the rack he filled me with such a stand, ”Krylov recalled from his first training.

Nikita switched to MMA from Kyokushin, kicked superbly and put his hands up mainly in fights in the mining villages of Donbass. These stories are reminiscent of films about the Wild West and the Asian Orient with Bruce Lee at the same time. But they have characteristic signs of the 21st century – in one of the fights Krylov was hit with a modern baseball bat.

In 2020, Krylov began training as a classic UFC fighter – he trained at American gym Top Team with popular trainers Conan Silveira and Steve Mocha, but over the past year and a half , Nikita lived in two cities: he trains in Tver and comes to Moscow to train in the gymnasium of Alexander Volkov.

– You train in Tver with one of your first coaches, little known in the world of MMA. Can you explain why such a choice and why Valery Andreev is good? – we talk with Krylov during the week of the tournament.

– I would like you to talk to him and come to our house for training. Then you wouldn’t ask such questions. I believe he is a unique person. Not only with his coaching activities, but simply in essence. I don’t think he’s been ashamed of a single training session in the last 37 years – he’s been training since he was 15. And as for attention to himself – it seems to me that he does everything not to attract it. And he has such a vision of how to conduct the battle that I would say unique. I want to learn from him. I worked with a lot of people and realized that there might not be a better specialist, so for a year and a half we have been training together. And the knowledge I received from him cannot be compared to anything. It turns out that he passed them on to me at the beginning of the trip, and now, for a year and a half, I have also been recruiting them.

– You have said many times that you worked closely on wrestling after coming to MMA from Kyokushin. How do you improve boxing in general? Because Kyokushin doesn’t involve good hands.

– More recently, my younger brother participated in an amateur master tournament. And I noticed that his hands flew in a completely different way, a different speed appeared, and the way of fighting on his hands became completely different – and he only worked with a trainer for two weeks, with who I haven’t separated in the past five months. So hopefully in this fight I can surprise with something on my hands.

— Is Valery Nikolaevich a sambo wrestler or a boxer?

– He is a basic sambo wrestler, but he is from Makeevka, and there is a very good boxing school. There were several world champions there during the Soviet era, so he grew up surrounded by boxers, even though he was the only sambist himself. And on top of that, he’s devoted most of his life, probably 85%, to sports, so he has a background that’s hardly comparable to anything. It conveys the technique of the performance in such a way that after elementary prompts the weight of the blow changes, which I can send to the bag or to the sparring partner. And that’s only because it tells me which foot to transfer the weight of the kick to. I would really like you to come take a look. It is difficult to explain.

For Andreev, this will be the UFC’s first fight as a second. With him, Russian heavyweight Sergey Bilostenny will help Krylov. For three, they need to find something against former title challenger Alexander Gustafsson. Gustafsson is 195cm tall and he has already given the most brutal cuts to arguably the most gifted fighters of his weight, Daniel Cormier and Jon Jones. But now one can only guess what form it is in. The Swede follows a three-game losing streak and trains in the gym with Khamzat Chimaev (they say it’s unhealthy too).

– He starts most of the action with the jab. Feels the distance and, depending on where his jab lands, adds a backhand or a low kick. Classic boxing style – through the front hand. Something more specific is difficult to determine, but you have to be ready for this shot. Although with boxers, in principle, you need to quickly switch to your game and exchange fewer hands, – says Krylov about Gustafsson.

In the division up to 93 kg, where they will fight, now is a very unusual time. For about 10 years the belt was held by Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier, but now there are supposedly 10-12 fighters of equal class, and the belt is changing hands. Jiri Prochazka holds the title of champion, he spent only three fights in the UFC and won the belt.

– From time to time there are such fighters in our industry, in which the organization is interested in their brilliant performances. It turns out that Prochazka managed to achieve the title in three fights. Part of it is impressive, but, on the other hand, I understand that there are fighters who have done a little more for it,” Krylov says.

– If, like in the movie “Troy”, someone from your division were to go out and fight with a very strong fighter, who would you choose besides yourself?

– Magomed Ankalaev has a string of victories, he is quite trained and in many ways can cause inconvenience to almost any fighter. It’s hard to single him out on his own, so I’d mention Alexander Rakich, who’s also a pretty versatile fighter. And I would also name the first two contenders: Glover Teixeira and Jan Blachowicz.

Krylov retired from the UFC in 2016 and returned in 2018 as a Fight Nights champion. After his return, the fighter did not have the most impressive statistics: 2 wins in 6 fights. True, these were fights with the best opponents and not on the best terms for Nikita himself. In London, Krylov will fight for the second time in a row, and it will be an attempt to close the loss in March this year. When asked if it is important to win in the territory where he recently lost, Nikita replies unequivocally:

– Naturally. Basically, you always want to win. We have now arrived in London at the same hotel, same place, I am already going here as a local, I know where and what. This time they flew just before the fight, and the last time it was necessary to arrive three weeks in advance, and I already got a little tired of everything, but here I am in a good mood, and everything is high for me.