Khabib Nurmagomedov‘s team in the American Kickboxing Academy has made a real impact on the sport of mixed martial arts, producing a number of champions across various weight classes. AKA head coach Javier Mendez has trained some of the best fighters in the world, and still does at the age of 54. However, fans would be surprised to hear that the Mexican-born coach does it for free.
Well, that’s not what we mean exactly, but let us walk you through what Javier Mendez said. During a conversation with ex-bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley‘s coach, Tim Welch, on the latter’s YouTube channel, Team Khabib’s coach answered some queries when asked about how he negotiates the business aspect of his relationship with the fighters. Well, he claims that, for fighters competing at the highest level, like in the UFC, Mendez allows them to train at the gym without paying any money.
Do you find that strange? Well, according to Javier Mendez, he allows the “high-level” fighters to train for free because that’s the norm. That probably might have been the same with Khabib Nurmagomedov when he was active. But when those fighters train with a particular coach, with Mendez or anyone else, they make their arrangements accordingly, and the fighter pays a percentage of his earnings to the coaches. “That [paying fighters] all depends on who they work with. You know, if they’re a high-level fighter, because they’re high-level, we don’t have a gym fee for them. They train for free,” Javier Mendez told Tim Welch.
“We basically work it with whoever trains them, wherever they want to train with them. If it’s me, I get my percentage that I work out. If it’s somebody else, they do. So, some high-level fighters that train at my gym do not pay me whatsoever, or the gym. But they do pay the instructors that train them. They put them through the training, the coaches, etc. So, they do pay them, but me, no.”
That seems to make sense as high-level fighters are competing every now and then and making money. So, it isn’t a bad idea to take a cut from their payouts instead of asking for membership fees. But besides this unrestrictive practice with the fighters from Javier Mendez, Khabib Nurmagomedov’s team has also earned praise for their unshakeable loyalty.
Khabib Nurmagomedov’s team is the only real team in MMA
Well, an MMA fight is a one-on-one contest, so yes, it’s an individual sport. But there are teams and teammates who fight in different or the same weight classes, and there have been times when they’ve turned on each other, and one of the most famous crash-outs happened between Colby Covington and Jorge Masvidal. However, nothing even close to that has ever happened with Khabib Nurmagomedov and his comrades, and Chael Sonnen lauds that kind of loyalty that lies within the teammates, and even called them better than team sport franchises such as the NBA’s LA Lakers.
“Guys we got one real team in the world, it’s not the Lakers. Those guys are w—-. You write a big enough check they’ll put your jersey on. It’s not any college with the NIL.,” Chael Sonnen stated on his YouTube channel. “The only real team we have is Khabib’s team. Where guys actually comes to the same gym and they come up together and they help one another.”
Well, Khabib Nurmagomedov and his comrades, including long-time friend and protégé Islam Makhachev, have always earned praise for the way they treat each other. The recent decision by Khabib to not allow his protégé to fight Belal Muhammad is an excellent example of their loyalty. They even treat their opponents the same way, without any trash talk. What do you think about Team Khabib? Drop your comments below.
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