The Detached podcast
Welcome to the podcast. This is a space where I get to vocalize my thoughts and dive deep into conversations with some truly remarkable individuals. It’s not about surface-level chit-chat—this is where we get into the real stuff. We talk about the things that matter: health, fitness, relationships, and the process of breaking free from the limitations we place on ourselves.
I don’t believe in small talk, because nothing meaningful ever comes from it. So, let's dig deep into the topics that can actually change your life. I want to bring you value, provoke your thinking, and help you see the world differently.
If you resonate with these conversations, I’d love for you to share the podcast with others. Your support means everything.
Let's get into it.
Sophia
The Detached podcast
EP: 93 The Mind Behind Champions: Javier Mendez on Coaching MMA Legends
Javier Mendez opens up about the extraordinary journey that took him from a bullied Mexican immigrant to becoming one of MMA's most respected coaches. With disarming honesty, he reveals how a chance encounter at a nightclub led him to martial arts and eventually to founding the legendary American Kickboxing Academy.
The conversation delves deep into Mendez's relationships with his most famous fighters. He shares intimate details about preparing Khabib Nurmagomedov for the psychological warfare against Conor McGregor, explaining, "He's going to come after your father, your country, your religion... You can't let him win." This masterful mental preparation helped Khabib remain composed while dominating one of UFC's most heated rivalries. Mendez speaks with profound respect about what Khabib taught him about loyalty, family, and generosity, noting how "the more wealth he had, the more generous he became."
Perhaps most moving is Mendez's candid discussion of Cain Velasquez's legal troubles after attacking the man who allegedly molested his son. With fatherly concern, Mendez explains the neurological factors behind Velasquez's actions while expressing unwavering support for his former champion. "He's such a beautiful person," Mendez says, confident that Velasquez will eventually turn this tragedy into something positive.
Beyond fight stories, Mendez reflects on his own identity journey—how he initially rejected his Mexican heritage due to childhood bullying, only to eventually embrace it through Cain's influence. Now, he's planning to expand AKA to Dubai, hoping to develop Emirati fighters for the world stage while continuing to work with his Russian champions.
Whether you're an MMA enthusiast or simply interested in the psychology of high-performance coaching, Mendez offers profound insights into what makes fighters great and what it takes to build champions both in and outside the cage.
Thank you for listening to this podcast you can find Javier on Instagram :
https://www.instagram.com/akajav/
And if you liked this episode I would love to hear your thoughts?
Javier, it's an absolute honor to have you on here today. I just have done so much research on you and I can't believe a guy who's so calming and collective has done what you've achieved in the fighting industry.
Speaker 2:Thanks, thanks for having me, thanks for the great compliments. You know a lot of it is, you know, strategy, and a lot of it is luck, you know. So you have to have both and you have to be persistent in what you love, you know, in order to accomplish the things that I have. And I have all three luck, persistence and love.
Speaker 1:Have you always believed in luck?
Speaker 2:Have you always believed in luck? A little bit, a little bit, a little bit, because it was just by yes, yes. Because it's like not everything was designed your way. Something just pop up in your will, works, you know, and it just goes. You just go with it. But it's not something that you planned, it just it just pops up.
Speaker 1:Do you think someone who doesn't work hard gets presented with luck?
Speaker 2:Yes, I've seen that quite a bit. I've seen people that are rotten people get so many gifted things done for them that it's unbelievable how some people will be so evil but yet get so lucky at the same time, and I'm like I thought God was supposed to not give those people. Maybe he does in the other ways. You know where their spirit is bad and their souls are bad and their conscience gets to them. I had met, actually, one person that outside was fantastic, inside was actually dirty and he used to have these big giant flare-ups, you know where. He'd bleed all over the place, just constant bleeding and everything. And I was like wondering, if you're healthy, why are you bleeding all the time? Well, it's because he was stressed out for all the dirty stuff he does. That might come back on him.
Speaker 1:Would you say you're a good judge of character.
Speaker 2:I would say I'm a good judge of character when it comes to other people. When it comes to me, I would say I'm a horrible judge of character because I use my heart, not my head, you know, and my heart just loves everybody and my head does not. I had things clearly, and my brain was not my head, my brain. So I can do great, like, for instance, sophie, if you said hey, you know, can you let me know? If this guy's a good guy for me, I can do that. But now turn that around, and if it was for me, I will look in the good in that person. I won't look in the bad in him. I will look right away, forget about the bad, look in the good and I will gravitate to that. And that can lead to problems, and it has led to problems.
Speaker 1:Have you always been that way?
Speaker 2:Uh, yes, I've always been that way where I was wanting to help people. And sometimes, you know, now as I'm getting older and I'm realizing that not everybody you should help, you know, because you know they're only looking not for help, help they're looking for. You know, in other words, the old saying you know, teach someone how to fish versus giving them the fish. Well, they're always looking to, not fish. So you have to realize that that's what you're dealing with and move on, because if they're looking for fish, not looking to fish, then those are not the people you really want to be able to spend the time with.
Speaker 1:Growing up for you was quite difficult, right? I know you mentioned that you were bullied before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, growing up was not quite difficult in the sense of bullying, but a sense of poverty. Yes, it was. Um, you know, one of the biggest thing is when I came to the united states uh, it was, uh, you know it was my father brought the whole family and my uncle and my grandfather all in the pickup truck how old were you then?
Speaker 2:uh, six, six, oh, he brought us all over and, um, when I came here, uh, I was being bullied by verbal, not physical, but I would. I would be the one to get physical with them because I didn't know how to speak back with them. But they called me a wetback, you know. And basically, mojado, that's what they used to call me, and I'm, rather than fight back which I didn't know I would use my fists. So I would fight, and, ironically, the kids that always picked on me were not Americans, they were Mexican-Americans. So it was my own Latino kind that would call me a wetback. Not Americans, not anybody else, but Mexicans, they would call me wetback, you know. So I'd fight with them, I'd beat them up, you know they would call me wetback, you know. So I'd fight with them, I'd beat them up, you know.
Speaker 1:And uh, so that's in that way, you know, as far as fighting, but as far as growing up in poverty, yeah, it was, it was not easy so when you started fighting, then did you become, did you have like a keen interest in fighting because you have to defend yourself, or was it something that you were like? I want to be like one of those fighters no, I had a keen interest to defend myself.
Speaker 2:It had nothing to do with wanting to fight. I basically got involved in, in, uh, martial arts only because I was at a nightclub. I had used my brother's id to get a, um, uh, you know, an id that says I'm 21 years of age, you know. So, um, basically, I was 19, you know, and I was in my, you know, I got involved. No, it was 18. Sorry, it was 18.
Speaker 2:So I got the fake ID and I'd go with a girlfriend that would take me to their nightclub and she would always, uh, tease me with other people and she'd flirt with other guys all the time. So she was flirting with the drug dealer type guy and me being me, you know, don't know any better. I got jealous, you know. So I went up to the guy and, before, you know, we almost got in a fight. You know, the bouncers broke us up and, um, after that happened, I was so angry you know that I, of course, when I went up to him, I wanted to fight right, because, you know, it's my woman. But then, all of a sudden, when it was over, I realized, wow, I could have got myself in trouble and I don't even know how to fight. I'm like I better go to a martial arts studio after that. So that's how I started.
Speaker 1:And where was your first studio that you went to visit?
Speaker 2:My first martial arts studio that I went to Tong Soo Do. It's a Korean martial arts and under Jeffrey Scott on uh uh, that was my first one. I stepped in there and he was the only one that actually spoke to me. I've been into other martial arts places but no one spoke to me and I felt stupid just standing there waiting and so I left and, um, because I was very shy, so I wasn't the kind of person that would go hello, hello, I need help. You know, I would just I just sit there thinking like, okay, someone's going to come looking around, and no one ever came, so I left it. But then when I went to this guy's place, he came and greeted me right away, and obviously the reason why is because he needed the business, so I was a customer.
Speaker 1:Hmm, um, when did you start your full-time fighting career? Because I know you're a world champion at some stage, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I started my fighting career. It all started Well. First I started with Jeffrey Scott and actually I boxed when I was 12 years old for about six months, but I didn't think that was self-defense, I just thought it was boxing. And what happened is, as I'm training it with jeffrey scott, uh, I found out that you know what he was teaching? The mental thing and everything just bunch of lies about master this, master that can do this and that, and I just found it to be, uh, not real, you know, and I was looking for something better. So I ended up, through a friend of mine, ended up going with this instructor named Scott Coker, who actually became the promoter for Strikeforce and then became Bellator promoter and he was like my best friend. He became my best friend so I started training with him and as a result of training with him, he's the one that started in the martial arts promotions called PK Karate. It was called West Coast Productions and he do the full contact promotion. So I got involved with him.
Speaker 2:And how I got involved with him is I had a friend of mine that I live with named Juan Alexander, and I used to be one of those I would have or could have. I could beat that guy, I could do this, I could do that. So what ended up happening is I was running around the track with Juan and I was doing my. I could beat that guy, I could beat this guy, and all of a sudden, next thing you know, we stopped running because Juan said stop and he said I'm sick and effing tired of you talking about what you could have, what you could should have. You haven't done anything, so shut the hell up until you've done something, then you can speak. Right now, shut up. And I'm like I was so angry that he told me that I'm like where you at. So I wanted to say something. But he was right. I mean, no, I haven't done anything. So what can I say? You know, I'm gonna fight with him, you know, know, he probably would have beat me up, anyways. So right after that I was with Scott Coker.
Speaker 2:About two weeks after that we were at a Denny's and he was wanting someone to come and do a demonstration with a legendary fighter by the name of Bill Superfull Wallace. And he goes hey, I need someone to do an exhibition with him. I have the other guys, but I need one more. And I said I do it. You know, I raised my hand up. I do it, I do it. And he's like, okay, you're on. But I was joking, I wasn't serious, I was not serious. I was thinking are you crazy? I'm not going to do this. But then I was going to tell him I'm not serious, but Juan Alexander, shut the hell up until you've done something. So basically, what ended up happening is I shut up.
Speaker 2:I went and did kickbox, aerobics for cardio to try to get myself in shape for this thing and, um, I had the privilege of watching bill superfoot do a seminar before the fight, because I had known him and I, as I went to watch his seminar, I realized that what the hell did I get myself into? This guy's going to knock my head off. You know, I mean his lead leg. He only used his lead leg. His back leg was not good, only his lead leg. So he'd pick up his leg and he'd kick three, four times in the air right in your face, without just within a second, and I'm just like, oh my God, what did I get myself into? I'm going to get beat up. So I went in thinking I'm going to keep my hands up really nice and tight up high and et cetera, et cetera. So when I went into the exhibition with him I kept my hands up really tight like I wanted to, but it was great, it was no big deal. I was like, oh it's nothing, he went, I went, he went, I, he went, I went, and you know, I felt really good.
Speaker 2:The promoter comes up after the first round, says you want to come down? I said no, I'm fine. So he goes. Okay, and the announcer who's? Uh, he was a ventriloquist, uh, for one of the famous guys from las vegas. Um, his name will come to me, but anyways, he, he was, he was he, he, he did magic, you know, for him. So, so, david Copperfield. He was with David Copperfield and he was the announcer for this event. He goes. How many of you think Bill Superfoot is winning this, this exhibition, and Bill does this? Like for people to clap.
Speaker 3:Nobody clapped and and I'm thinking, I'm not thinking nothing of it.
Speaker 2:So I'm okay, bill, does this like for people to clap? Nobody clapped and I'm not thinking nothing of it. So, okay, we're going to the second round. The very first thing he did is he kicked me so hard he sent me three, four feet back. I went right back up to him and I punched him. He hit me again, I punched him, he hit me again, I punched him.
Speaker 2:So that second round I was fighting for my life. So he hit me, I hit him, he hit me, I hit him and I bloodied his face up a little bit. And after the round ended, you know, his corner looked at him and he was bloodied up and he's like come on, javier, one more round. And I'm like now I'm super tired. Now I know what it was like to actually be in a fight. Fight, right. The first round was like this is easy. Second round no, no, he beat me good and I beat him. So it was one of those. But he wanted to get me back. So I knew if I went one more round with him I would have been done. He would have knocked me out and he would have enjoyed knocking me out.
Speaker 1:So I said no, no, I'm out, so after that, that's when my career started was that your first taste and your first experience of like okay, this is what fighting is?
Speaker 2:uh, that was my first taste of what kickboxing was. I had actually my first taste of fighting when I was 12, when I boxed, uh and uh, that same kind of feeling where you're, you're like gasping for air and yeah.
Speaker 1:So that was my second one, but I didn't realize that boxing was fighting because it's very different when you obviously do a lot of pad work and these types of classes. Until then you get hands in because I've I've fallen down the honey trap before thinking, oh, I like kickboxing and hitting pads.
Speaker 2:And then I was asked to spar once and I was like, okay, I'm a lover, I'm not a fighter yeah, yeah, it's a whole different ball game, you know, and uh, if you don't do it properly and take care of the student? If you want to fight, okay, it's different. You throw them in the pool, let them swim, but if you're not a fighter and you don't want to fight, you want to experiment with it, they need to be handled with kid gloves. It's very important because it's a very traumatic type scenario. If you don't want to fight and you're learning to defend yourself, it has to be handled very appropriately because otherwise, it can go really bad.
Speaker 1:Do you think a coach can be a good coach without professionally fighting?
Speaker 2:I believe one million percent. A coach can be a great coach without actually fighting, and my son, jeremy mendez, right now, is actually proof of that right now. And uh, I was just had the privilege and great honor for me as a father, to corner with him on the uae warriors here in abadabi and I, cornered with romero cotton, hit the fighter, the his fighter with him and, uh, I was amazed at how good he was, you know, and I'm like looking at my son, I go, man, I go. I'm very proud of you because you know what you're better like looking at my son, I go, man, I go. I'm very proud of you because you know you're better than your dad was at this particular age. You're ahead of me. So keep doing what you're doing, keep learning and keep improving and you don't ever have to fight. I taught him you don't have to fight, you just have to know the paths. You know. You have to know, uh, the sport you have to know, uh, you have to study it. You know you can't just come in and think you're going to do it. No, no, you got to practice, you got to study it, because if you don't fight, you have to do something. You have to work harder than everybody else, and that's what he's doing.
Speaker 2:And, uh, one of the times before I came here, um, it was, uh, after an event, we went to an event with Scott Coker's event that was the Bell of his events and after the event, I went home to our gym, you know, and it's 11 pm at night and I'm going OK, son, I'll see you at home. He goes. No, dad, I go. What do you mean? No, he goes, I'm going to go train. I said, oh, it was 11 pm and he wanted to go train in the gym and I said, ok, go ahead. So that's what it takes, that kind of determination, that kind of love, that kind of persistence.
Speaker 1:And he had all of that and still does, and he made that decision on his own.
Speaker 2:He made that decision on his own. I didn't do anything with him. I basically my biggest thing that I've worked with my fighters is the mindset and I get their mind in the right direction before they can do something positive for themselves. And whether it be fighting, whether it be something else, I work on the mind and I'll give you, for instance with my son.
Speaker 2:My son was almost 300 pounds at one point and I knew he didn't like himself. So I would just tell him little simple things. Like you know, jacqueline Lane, who was the greatest fitness guru of all time, would just say it's calories in, calories out. So the less calories you put in, the more you burn. You'll start dropping the weight. So I kept telling them that little little, little nice subtle messages, you know. But then all of a sudden he started going on this quest that he wanted to drop the weight and he, I think he dropped almost almost 100 pounds in about uh, eight, nine months, you know. So he did that, he just, and he was eating not necessarily good food, bad food, but didn't matter less calories. So then he dropped all the weight and then, uh, he started uh wanting me to start training him again. We had trained when he was young. But then, uh, I screwed up and I let him out, which was a bad mistake. Once you let him in, don't let him out, you know. And uh, not with hard like you, better stay in training, no, but figure out ways to get them interested in wanting to train. So I let him out and then that was a big mistake. But now he wanted back in. So I said, okay, I'm gonna do the opposite, I'm gonna give him a little bit at a time. So I would only train them like five minutes at a time. You know, I wouldn't train him more than that. And then, and I said, you have to ask me to train you. So he'd ask me and they asked me so, okay, so I started, every time he asked me I trained him and we kept working, and we kept working.
Speaker 2:And there was a point there where he looked really really good, you know. And and he got to the point where he was really good and he said to me Dad, I want to coach, I go, you want to coach, he goes, yeah, so right, when he said that, I picked up on that. I took him to the gym with me. I go, just, don't say nothing, just, I want you to observe, don't say nothing. And if I give you a fighter, you already know what to do because I've taught you. You can work with him, but don't put yourself in the front of you know, thinking, oh everything, just follow my lead. And that's exactly what he did.
Speaker 2:And about two years into it then he became more prominent with the gym and he started working his own fighters and going in the cage with them. And you know now he's so good, him and Ron Kessler they're the ones that run the gym at AKA in San Jose and Ron's the head coach my son's next to him and he's to the point where I didn't know this, but he tells me that you know he hasn't not lost since April of last year with the fighters that he's actually trained, that he's actually trained. There's a lot of fighters at the gym, but he has like seven that he trains personally and they have not lost since last april. So that's quite an accomplishment, you know. So he's on track, he's on track and I'm very proud of him. You know, and it's something that you know. Uh, it teaches people. You can be what you want to be if you understand how to read the map and how to follow the map.
Speaker 1:You mentioned mindset there and I want to understand what kind of mindset work do you do with your fighters?
Speaker 2:I want all the details well, the mindset I do with the fighters is, um, if I look at their opponents, right, and I see something that that we need to work on with their opponents, uh, I would look at telling my fighter this is what we need to work on, this is what we need to work on, and when that time comes and they executed that inspiring I pointed I said that was it, that's what we're talking about. So it comes fresh in their mind. Coach has been saying this, coach has been saying this. Now it worked right in actual, you know combat and they're like, ah, okay, so it becomes more of the mental thing and then they understand it and they gravitate to it and they feel more comfortable using it.
Speaker 2:Uh, the mindset as I'll give you a perfect example, I've said it on many occasions uh, one of the mindsets I used was conor mcgregor and habib. Basically, when the fight was scheduled to be made, there was already a lot of drama with the bus situation where conor attacked the bus because habiba talked. Martin lobom. Uh, one of them asked you about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, habiba attacked with the bus. Situation where Conor attacked the bus because Habib attacked Martin Lobom.
Speaker 2:I wanted to ask you about that. Yeah, habib attacked Martin because Martin had said that Habib's a chicken and when he sees him he's going to slap him, you know. And so Habib okay, here's a Russian guy speaking like that Well, he's going to have to back up his words. So Habib approached him in New York when he was going to fight for the title and he slapped Martin. He slapped him. So he tells Conor, conor's people come over, conor gets all his fighters and other friends on the jet that he bought and he flies down to, you know, new York and they come in. And they come in which I don't know how they got in, because they shouldn't have been able to get in, but they got in where they shouldn't have been able to get in and they attacked the bus where habib was on, connor through, uh, I think a dolly or it looked like a trash can.
Speaker 2:It was a trash can or something it looked like you know those uh trolleys. Yeah, that's a doll, doll, yeah, it's those. Well, a doll, yeah, that's those things they carry.
Speaker 1:That's what I thought, yeah, so I tell you about a dolly, isn't an actual. Oh no, no, no the that would they.
Speaker 2:They carry the, they carry you, yeah, yeah. So it's a dolly, and so he threw it and it traumatized you might have been on the bus no, I wasn't on the bus.
Speaker 2:Who was on the bus was the manager, was on the bus ali, uh, habib was on the bus. Uh, another good friend of mine was in the bus and he told me exactly what happened. He said he had to hold ali back because ali wanted to come out. And and so you know ilir latifi, who is a ufc fighter and he's a heavyweight, and he said he had to hold ali back and other guys had to hold habib back. They wanted to come out. Yeah, they wanted to fight, they weren't going to stay in the bus, they wanted to come out.
Speaker 1:So was there any damage done at that stage?
Speaker 2:uh, only I think rose, uh, rose, one of the girl world champion, rose yannamouis. I don't know why I forgot her name. I know her name really well thug thug rose. Okay, we'll call her thug rose. I guess she was traumatized because she might have got something in her eye glass, in her eye or something like that. So it was very for her. It was very traumatizing. A few of the other people was too, you know.
Speaker 2:But as a result of that, the fight was made. So I knew what Conor was going to do. I knew that he was going to use the art of war, which is, you know, rile you up, get you pissed off so you would come into the fight. You know, rile you up, get you pissed off so you would come into the fight. You know, angry this and that. So I told Habib when the fight was signed.
Speaker 2:They came from training camp. I said look, he's going to come after your father. He's going to come after your country. He's going to come after your religion. He's going to come after your mom. I go, you cannot let this guy win this. He might even come after your manager, maybe me. I'm not sure about me. I said, but he's definitely coming after the rest. And sure enough, true to his words, he came after everybody. So I would remind him be three to four times a week. He's coming after you. You can't let him win, because if you let him win then we're entering the fight at his advantage. You got to beat him every step of the way because it'll mess with his head. It's not the opposite way around. And it worked, it was, it was perfect. You know, we beat him mentally. We beat him at all. Every press conference Khabib did. He beat him. He didn't lose that, he didn't get riled up. So Conor did not get to do what he wanted to do and rile him up. I mean, he's a master at that.
Speaker 1:Do you think that trash talk actually amplified the success of Khabib?
Speaker 2:I 100% believe that trash talk amplified it Without that trash talk, because one of the things he did that got everybody against him was he attacked the religion. If he would have just attacked the country and not the religion, then it's different. But you know, we're living in the UAE, which is, you know, mostly Muslim. The people, the locals, they're all Muslim, the majority of them muslim the, the people, the locals are all muslim, the majority of them. So obviously, you know, when you're talking about the old muslim countries, you know, and there's like two billion, uh, almost the muslims in the world, you know, obviously they hear about this devil of a guy speaking bad about their religion.
Speaker 2:And you have this savior, who's actually, you know, as close to being perfect muslim as they, as they come, you know he, he beat the heck out of this guy. So obviously people are like whoa, who is this guy? And more people know Habib than they actually know what MMA is. I feel, because a lot of not everybody has probably seen the UFC event that are Muslim, right, but they know who Habib is because of what he did, and it wasn't until the end, when he jumped over the cage. That that's when it really, really hit news. That's when things changed for him. Things were changing really well before that, don't get me wrong, but that really put him over the top.
Speaker 1:It was a real shame to see Conor McGregor represent a nation. From being from Ireland and seeing what he did in all these different episodes, even now, you know to this day it's just it is a poor representation of Ireland. He was just not a good person from the beginning, from the beginning.
Speaker 2:I never looked at him representing Ireland because I don't think the majority of the Irish people stood behind him.
Speaker 1:I think he had his fan base. They did at the beginning.
Speaker 2:He had his fan base, but I think you're right, at the beginning he did. But I think when he started doing those things I think they all started seeing what he was all about. He still has a major fan base. I mean the guy is, he's a star. I mean you can't take that from him. Look at all his records. His records say he is. If you look at the five top pay-per-view buys for the UFC, conor McGregor's in all five. You know, if you look at the fights in the world and all like boxing and all pay-per-view events, conor's two and three. He's two and three. Number two is with Floyd Mayweather in him. Number three most pay-per-view buys is Habib in him. He owns both of those. So the guy is the mega star. I mean I don't like him because of what he does, but I have to respect what he's done.
Speaker 1:Did he come after you, Jern?
Speaker 2:No, no, the only thing he's ever said about me is to put his coach over John Cavanaugh, who's a great guy. You know I met John. He's a great guy. You know, I met John, he's a lovely guy.
Speaker 2:He just called me a fat arse kickboxer. All right, he does, he goes. I'm nothing but a fat arse kickboxer. I was like, whoa, I am fat, so okay, I'm all right. I didn't take offense to that because he was telling the truth. I'm like, ah, he's telling the truth, you know, and I thought it was funny. Yeah, you could have gotten worse, I suppose. Oh, he, that's all he ever said. I'm a fat arse kid. I said worse about him. You know he hasn't attacked me for anything that I've said. And uh, he's a loose cannon. I mean, you've seen it. Come on. I mean how are you gonna go punch a a guy who's sitting in the barstool because he didn't want to drink your beer and you cold cocked him? You know how do you throw a drink at machine gun kelly, because he didn't want to take a picture with you and you throw a drink at him.
Speaker 2:I mean comedy indications of him getting violent with people because they don't go his way. It's like he was earlier on. I watched him and he was so great the later. Such a jerk, you know such a jerk and I'm like new money, new money, something just changed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know well, something just changed them. But also you know such a jerk and I'm like new money, new money or something just changed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, well, something just changed them. But also, you know, not everybody's experienced bad things from him. I give you one person that that got something great from him, a nick catone. Uh, he has a gym in in new jersey and his son died, uh, by a freak accident at a hospital and conor mcgregor sent him a lot of money for support, you know, and he don't even know him. So this guy's not all bad, you know. It's just some of the things he does. It's just bad, you know, and and I wish he just wouldn't do those things and people would probably love him more, you know, but he doesn't get as much love as he does dislike because of some of the things he's done, you know yeah, I'd love to kind of connect the dots and see what's going on inside his mind.
Speaker 2:Maybe, I mean, maybe all he needs is a good counseling and continuing to stay on track and maybe he will change, because, I mean, he's very charismatic, so the guy can do things. But you know, it's like if you look at Habib, look how great of a human being he is, look how great he is supporting people and what he does for people, how he treats people and how he respects his religion. I mean, he is so great at what he does that he doesn't break his religion, what his beliefs are Like. For instance, if a woman wants to come and take a picture with him and they're wearing cut off things where their blouses show it, he won't take a picture. No matter who they are, he will not take a picture. If they cover up properly, then he will take a picture. He won't touch them or nothing, because that's not appropriate either. So he won't do that. He won't look at them, but he will take a picture with them.
Speaker 2:So a lot of times people think that, oh, he just treats women bad. But no, he respects women to the utmost. But that's his way of respecting them. He, he doesn't. He doesn't disrespect them. So I mean, obviously, if you're someone's telling you drink that that tequila and you're not allowed to drink and you don't believe in drinking. Are you going to drink it? No no.
Speaker 2:So his belief on on what they do is is with the women. They'll take pictures, but they gotta be, you know, properly cloth, but they got to be, you know, properly clothed. You know that's his religion. You know how can you fault a man for following his religion?
Speaker 1:Do you think that's really amplified the success of his dedication to the sport? Yes, religion has played a big role.
Speaker 2:a big, big part. Religion has played a big part. His father played a huge part also. His father was a big time rock for him, raising him up as a little boy, raising him to do the proper things. His father is the individual that should have gotten more of the credit, uh, for what his son became you know, as as not just a fighter, but as a human being outside of fighting I watched his story.
Speaker 1:It's incredible. I think when he was outside of nine or twelve he was wrestling bears yeah, these bears were, uh, trained to wrestle, so his father would put him in with the bears and they'd wrestle, so yeah do you think anyone in modern society now could have the same, the same success as Khabib has living in an environment like Dubai, as opposed to, maybe, living in the mountains, like he did, wrestling bears, you know, having no distractions. Do you think that's possible?
Speaker 2:It's possible and it's possible with a lot of work and a lot of mindset, type working and hard, consistency, work ethic, and I actually I'm uh. I spoke to the the uh, the sports council about me potentially coming on board to do a gym here. If they're, if they're supporting me, I will do it and because I would need their support in order to make it work. And my goal is is to work with the Emirati uh fighters to to bring them to the world stage. You know, and I believe I can do it, if I get the Dubai Sports Council support, I can do it. If I don't, it'd be really difficult and I would just move on and do something else. But if I get their support, I will definitely open up a gym here, an AKA American Kickboxing Academy gym. It's AKA, basically AKA Dubai. I would do that here and I would work on that and I believe 100% I can do it. It'll take time but it'll work a lot quicker if I get the government support.
Speaker 1:How did you manage to open the gym up AKA, Because I know obviously it was quite difficult for you growing up financially and how did that start off for you?
Speaker 2:Well, unfortunately or not unfortunately, fortunately for me Scott Coker came into the picture, because that's what made it easy for me to do the gym thing, because I used to when I was training to fight, I would train at a glass shop so where they fixed cars, you know, windshields and whatnot, and residential, residential windows, and so we would go in and train. I would train a lot of fighters, because I quit my job to train for fighting. I needed to make the income and I couldn't do a full-time job. It was too difficult.
Speaker 2:So I basically would train at a glass shop and Scott Coker basically had his gym that he was at and he, little by little, said hey, you want to use my gym on a Friday night? I'll let you use my gym on a Friday night while you know we're closed. So if you want to use it after this time, you're more than welcome to use it. So I would use his gym at night and then he let me use it in the morning. And then he moved two doors down and his lease was still there with that place and he asked me if I wanted to take it over. So I got in with nothing, zero down. So I basically came in making money because of Scott Coker, you know. He let me take over his West Coast Taekwondo gym and that turned into the very first AKA gym.
Speaker 1:Did anyone ever question you back then for training late at night or early in the morning? Because it didn't really seem like a thing back then to be doing late night training. It wasn't very common for people to go and do that uh no, it wasn't.
Speaker 2:It was uh never, never going to be an issue, because when you have a business, you're even if I'm doing 12 midnight, it's you know that you have a lease. You have a lease, you you know it's. It's not like a mall right where you close at a certain time. If I want to have a training at 3 am in the morning, that's my least. I could do what I want.
Speaker 1:But I'm saying, like the people that are surrounding you, do they ever say like?
Speaker 2:crazy.
Speaker 1:Why would you train at 3 am in the morning time?
Speaker 2:They might think that, to be honest with you, but I've never really spoke to any of the neighbors they were, you know, know, I never really even met them. I mean I would, I wouldn't talk to anybody, I was just my own business what kind of parents did you grow up with?
Speaker 2:uh, I grew up with a father that was loved us, but it was never a real father. I grew up with a mother that was schizophrenic, so she basically was 51, 50 in other. She's a lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely lady who loved us to death. But she had visions of people poisoning us, people beating us up all the time. So, you know, it was always you couldn't go anywhere, even if I didn't want to go to school, okay, stay home. You know, because she was afraid someone's beating us at school. You know, she was that paranoid, you know that kind of talking.
Speaker 2:My father was an absent father. He was never around. I learned how to be a good person from my father, not because of what he did, because what he didn't do, but I wanted in a father. I didn't have in him other than the love. I mean, the only time my father gave me attention is when he was drunk. So he's smelling the beer and whiskey or whatever and he's putting me on his lap. You know I remember this as a kid. And then he's, you know, smelling bad and tells me he loves me and I just that's not what I wanted. I didn't feel love. I felt like get me out of here, you smell and you know you're acting crazy, and sometimes my father would take out his gun and shoot it inside the house, you know.
Speaker 2:So back in those days, if you did that, the police come to just tell you cut it out. That's what happened. Cut it out it back then. Back then. Now, uh, you do that, though you're going to jail. Yeah, you're going to jail and you go to jail for not a couple months, I mean, maybe a little longer than that. So, but back then it was, it was, it was. The laws were different, you know. Uh. So, yeah, my father was, was not a not a good, not a good, not really good person.
Speaker 2:Um, first, time my father was not a really good person. First time my father ever did something with me outside just me alone. I was going to school, my freshman year in high school, and I'm wearing these pants and my father's taking me to work. He goes, yeah, not to school, and he goes. You want to go? I go, yeah. So he takes me to school and as he looks at my pants, he said, hey, he goes. I don't want you wearing those pants anymore. You look like a like a gay. You look gay. He said it much more crude than that, but still gay. I was so crushed my father said that I didn't wear those pants the rest of the year, so I had four pair of pants to wear for the year, so that made it down to three.
Speaker 1:My father said I look gay, you you know, so I wouldn't wear the pants. How do you think the absence of your father, the father's relationship, impacted your adulthood as a year older?
Speaker 2:uh, my father's absence caused me to be better than I imagined, because I didn't. I didn't. I didn't use him as a scapegoat for why I'm bad or why I'm this. No, I just I used how he was as why I want to be better. So I didn't have anger for my father. I had love for him, but he was a horrible father.
Speaker 2:You know, as a matter of fact, when I was able to do all the things I wanted and my father was close to his deathbed not quite, but he was getting ill and he still was able to speak to me I said to him I go, dad. You know, I want you to forgive me for not spending any time with you. And he says what do you mean, son? He goes. Well, you know, I don't do anything with you because when I was a boy, you never did anything with me. So I don't know what it's like to be with you, so I don't know anything about being with you. And he goes, yeah, he goes.
Speaker 2:I was a piece of crap, dad. And I said, yeah, I said you were, I go. But you know what? Who knows where I would have been had you not brought me over to the United States, and you know, and we brought, came in legally through the border, you know, and had you not given us that opportunity, who knows where I would be? So I love you for that, because that you gave me an opportunity to better my life and our life, and so he was proud about that. Obviously, as a father, he failed, but I learned. I learned and I didn't hate him, I loved him.
Speaker 1:How do you think that impacted your relationship with Khabib's father then? Because Khabib was surrounded by his father all the time, by the, by the documentaries that I've seen, so do you think that's like made you appreciate that even more?
Speaker 2:No, I didn't think anything of it because I didn't. I didn't wish I had a better father. You know, in that regard, I wish I had a richer father. That would have been easier. Yeah, it would have been easier. I would have accepted my dad. Oh, you give me money, give me a Lamborghini. Okay, no problem, come here. But no, when Habib's father came in, I saw how great of a man he was humanitarian, what a great father he was, what a great teacher he was, all-around great individual. I just didn't think anything of it, that. I was very happy that he had someone that's that powerful.
Speaker 2:And you gotta imagine one thing and this is very important, as people, as coaches, know why would someone that's been training someone their whole life, who happens to be their son and they understand how great his son was going to be why would they allow him to train with me for all his UFC fights except the first one before I met him? Why would his father let him train? All Habib's UFC fights were with me except the very first one, and his father couldn't come. So his father and I didn't get to train Habib together. It was always me, you know, with my team, and anybody that's a great coach would never allow that. They would say you don't need to go, stay here, you know. But Habib's father allowed him to come. That's the kind of great person he was, that he was not afraid of me. He was looking at what's best for his son and if I can give his son something, that's great that he could do also when he's back there. But Habib wanted to train in the US. Then he was fine with that.
Speaker 2:His father did come one time, I believe it was 2015. He came to observe the training and he was there. He was perfect. He stayed, you know, out of the way and then he got involved. But he never got involved where he would step on my toes. He always was perfect in his mannerism and we gave him the utmost respect right away and at the very end there, you know, he told Habib that I'm very happy with you there. You're, you're, you're good there. You know, I trust Javier. So Habib's father never spoke to me about how to train his son. That's how great of a man he was. He never spoke to me. He never said don't do this with my son, get my son doing this.
Speaker 2:Nope nope nope and uh. There was a lot of conversations Habib and I had that were very ironic and funny, because I'd look at videos of our opponents and I'd say, okay, habib, we need to do this, we need to work on this, this. And he goes yes, yes, coach, I know, I know and I always go. What do you mean? You know? I'm just telling you this. Now he goes yes, yes, father says the same thing. Yeah, yeah, father say the same thing. I go okay, well, there you go. So that's what it used to be like, and he is an amazing man. The world lost a great leader and the family lost a great father.
Speaker 1:What was your first experience when you met Habib?
Speaker 2:My first experience with Habib is he couldn't speak any English. So when he sparred the very first time, he killed everybody and I was like God, this guy's great. And I would say relax, relax, and he'd go harder. I'm like man, this guy could be so great if he would just learn to listen, you know, listen. So I'm like relax, relax hard.
Speaker 2:Where was this? In san jose and aka in san jose. So you go harder all the time. And I'm like, as time went on, uh, he he got to speak a little bit better english and he said, coach, uh, you know, um, something, you know. You say you say, uh, uh, relax, relax, I go, yeah, he goes. Oh, uh, I think maybe I mean harder, go harder. And I went, ah, then I realized that he was listening to me and I. That's when I realized, oh, this guy's gonna kill everybody because of that type of mentality and his great grappling. That he was listening to me and I. That's when I realized, oh, this guy's gonna kill everybody because of that type of mentality and his great grappling that he had. And and, uh, that's when I realized he was gonna be great. And uh, another thing too is he would spar without headgear and I made him wear headgear, so he has a headgear that I gave him from everlast, still to this day.
Speaker 2:It's the only headgear he's ever used, and and they had to change names on it because it was Everlast and Reebok came in and sponsored the UFC. So what he did is he put a tag of Reebok on the headgear so he could still wear the headgear for sparring, because when the UFC comes and films it, they can't film Everlast, they have to film Reebok. So he'd do that. And another thing too he didn't ever wear a mouthpiece. So one of my fighters while they're sparring his name is Josh Thompson. He would spar with Habib quite a bit. And Josh said Hod, he goes.
Speaker 2:You always say we have to protect ourselves. I go, yeah, I go. Well, how come Habib doesn't wear a mouthpiece? I said what are you talking about? I said Habib he. I said what are you talking about? I said Habib, he goes. Yes, coach, I go, come over here. I go, do you have a mouthpiece? And he's like no, I go. What the heck's the matter with you, habib, you have to wear mouthpiece. He goes. I said we don't wear mouthpiece. I go, habib, listen, I go when you're sparring. Yeah, sure, a thousand times. One time a headbutt or something. Next you know your teeth are gone, it goes. Okay, coach, understood. So then, from that point, habib always wore a mouthpiece and habib, to this day, takes that what he learned about being protected at all times with his fighters. Also, when we coach the fighters together, he actually runs the guys per se, but but I'm like his mentor and I'm the head coach, but habib is more the leader and he'll tell those guys if they're not wearing the right, proper gear. He'll say you're a professional, you're not a professional.
Speaker 1:You know you need to wear your proper protection do you think he's taken the lead from his father?
Speaker 2:oh, big time, uh he's, he's gotten uh some. For me, the majority of who habib is I would say 80 his father, 10 him and 10 me. It was 80 his father. No way I came in and what I did, I tell everybody at the time it looked like a beautiful house already. There's the structures there, the foundations there. I'm the guy that came in and changed the, the, the colors and maybe I added the nice uh curtains, and know I added some high performance here and there, but the foundation and everything of who he was was all through his father.
Speaker 1:So when did you start being in connection with Islam? Was that around the same time as Habib?
Speaker 2:Islam if I remember correctly 2014 or 15 came to me with Habib, so that's when it started with Islam, and he, too, was destroying everybody. Nobody would beat him in sparring. The only person that beat him in sparring was, you know, won any rounds from him, or actually would beat him in rounds was Habib, no one else. No one else and Islam was the only one that ever beat Habib in any rounds in sparring. It was only Habib.
Speaker 1:What's a day in the life of Islam?
Speaker 2:A day in the of Islam. I don't really know as much, to be honest with you, but I know for sure he's a family man. He's a devoted father. He has his kids I believe one or two and he's an adventurous guy. He's a guy that likes to get on his motorbike and go dirt bike riding. He's a guy that likes to get on his horses. He's a guy that likes to get on his motorbike and go, you know, dirt bike riding. He's the guy that likes to get on his horses. He's the guy that likes to go shooting. He's a guy that likes to go fishing. He's an outdoor adventure type guy through and through. He would you would you call modern day cowboy in dagestan, you know would you say, talent is can be built or you're born with talent.
Speaker 2:You're born with talent, I believe, and I believe I'm correct, and you can build a champion that doesn't have the talent, but you can't have the talent. You know you can be a champion and not be super talented, but you can't have the talent. You can't not have it and all of a sudden you become a champion and have it. No, no, no, it's through hard work, hard work, dedication, strong mental work, ethics and things like that. So athletic ability is athletic ability. You're either born with it or you're not. You can make it better, but you can't make somebody a great athlete. My son is not a great athlete whatsoever. He had to work for what he has.
Speaker 1:What kind of dedication does it take to be a world-class fighter?
Speaker 2:It takes extreme dedication to be a world-class fighter, just like it would be for someone that's going to school and they want to get A pluses in work. If you don't go to work, you don't do your homework, you're not going to get those grades. So it's the same same principle if you want to be a world-class fighter, you have to do all the principles involved. You have to do your running, you have to do your proper sleeping, your nutrition. You have to do everything properly in order to attain that.
Speaker 1:If you do not do those things, don't expect the best results so I've seen before on a couple of different podcasts where prior to a fight, essentially the fighter will stay in, say, if it's Dubai, abu Dhabi, they'll stay there for like four weeks beforehand. How important is that time before a fight to be in the country, to be in the climate. You know how important is that.
Speaker 2:It's extremely important when you're talking about the climate. When you're talking about the country, not so important, but the climate is what's so, so important. Like, for instance, here we're going to be fighting on November 4th or 5th at the Coca-Cola Arena, the PFL, where Usman Nurmagomedov is fighting for the world title, lightweight title, and we're going to be training here about one month five weeks to one month for that fight here, because he's in Dagestan, russia, right now. So there's going to be a slight difference. So we'll come here and train and we've always done that. When we fight here, we come over here and we train. The least we've trained here is a month, the most two months. But uh, we'll be training here a month for that reason to get acclimated to the climate, not not the country, just the climate yeah, has there been any stages through your fighters that they haven't had that time to acclimatize and it's like really fired up?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, we've had that happen before. What the fight we had here. The fighter we had, romero Cotton, when he came here to fight UAE. He came here and he got really sick. He was sick the day before the fight. He was the hospital, he had to get IVs, we dehydrated himself and, uh, I was actually worried. I was worried he wasn't going to win his fight because he was going to run out of gas, because there was no way he was going to get full strength after what he went through. And, sure enough, the fight happened exactly like I thought.
Speaker 2:The unfortunate thing for us is he beat up the guy so bad in the first round he tired the guy out that he was super tired, but his opponent got even worse tired because of what he did to him. So that helped us out. If it wasn't for that, if he the opponent didn't take that much damage, we would have been in trouble. So that's where it hurt us coming. Coming here, you know, five days out before the fight, was not, not, not a good thing, you know what goes through your mind when you watch your fighters actually fight?
Speaker 1:like are you? Do you feel adrenaline? How do you feel?
Speaker 2:uh, when it first started happening with coaching, I couldn't sleep. I had. I got insomnia as a result of that. You know, I got insomnia and, uh, it really sucked because I couldn't sleep. I was like, oh my god, you know what if I screw? Oh, what do we need to do to win? Oh my God, we can't lose, la la la. So I had all these demons inside of me and it was really bad and I'd go into the fight, nervous, nervous, nervous. And on top of that, I'd go in with half asleep because I wasn't sleeping. So as time went on, I got better and better. Now I don't even think about the fights.
Speaker 2:I don't even think about the fights, I don't think about nothing, I just think about staying relaxed, going in there and observing the fight, not going crazy. I just look and I'm just like this and I'm looking. I'm not looking this way, I'm not, I'm just looking straight at what's going on there. Because imagine if you're driving in a car, right, you're going 60, 70, 80 miles an hour and you turn like this, this and you got in a wreck, right, you know that, you know that feeling right, and they say, oh, that split second. Well, it's the same thing. I think about the fights. So if you do this, you know, if you get nervous and you're thinking, then you're not thinking clearly about what's there in front of you and you're there to guide your fighter, to be the eyes for him on things that he may not see or she may not see, and advise him. You know, hey, you come back to the corner. Hey, you need to do this, you need to do that. But if I'm focusing, like, like, uh, settling habib down, and then which I used to do I go hey, and and after a while I said it's not working. So then I would do this, like, hey, I would do this and look like I tap, like this, hey, yeah, yeah, yeah, like I'm like, hey, you guys chill out and they're like I'm crazy. And it got to the point where you know I couldn't handle them doing their thing.
Speaker 2:So now, if you watch me in the corner when I'm with habib and any of those guys, I leave them alone. I don't even bother with them more. Let the commission handle with them now, because the commission will go sit down. Sit down, you can get points taken away. Sit down and and uh, habib's a master at it. He he's really good at at how, when he does what he does, so he gets. He still gets emotional. I don't, it's easy for me. I'm not even. I'm like before it was like this. My arms are like that'd be not. There's now like that's it I
Speaker 2:think that just comes with practice, though. It comes with practice. It comes with working. I just didn't get that way because of the experience. I got it because of what I wanted to do. I knew that it was not good for me. That's why people always ask me. They go hey, you know how come, you know what? Do you predict this fight? You know your fighter is going to win what round. And I said five-round war. Well, why five-round war? Why don't you? You don't think you can submit the guy? I said, well, if that happens, fantastic. But if I lose track of telling you he's going to knock him out in the first round and he doesn't, then my mind thinks, oh, he didn't knock him out. That one time I thought about that could have been the time I missed what's going on. So I don't want that. So if I'm prepared for five rounds and I'm engaged five rounds, if I'm not, I'm going to be there one round, you know. And then I couldn't get lost. I could lose where I'm at, you know, and I don't want to do that.
Speaker 2:And I learned that myself as a fighter, because what happened is one of my world title fights. The one of the coaches tells me that, hey, the guy's no good. His left arm is no good. He can't even throw it. So in my mind I'm thinking, oh, the guy can't throw it. Well, I'm in the fight. I lost this fight, by the way. So all I kept thinking about is that guy keeps hitting me with that left hand. I thought that left hand was no good, but he kept hitting me with it. So left hand was no good, but he kept hitting me with it. So you know, I learned. I go see, I got mindset into thinking this guy didn't have a left hand. Well, that wasn't true. He had a great left hand. He proved it by punching the hell out of me. So I told myself don't, don't, don't short sight yourself. So I learned a lot of what I do now from the mistakes that I did myself or were taught, you know. So that's how you know I learned I'm a thinker. I'm not one of those guys who just, you know, I'm just going to do what you say. I'm going to think about what you say. I'll do it because you asked me to say it, but if it doesn't work, I'm not going to do it again.
Speaker 2:Do you think it's important for fighters to have a bit of a mental rehearsal to imagine themselves inside with this hand. Imagine yourself winning. You have to play that to become the best you can be. If you do not feel you're going to win and you think you're going to lose, you will more likely lose. It happened to me there too.
Speaker 2:So I went into one of my fights the one fight where the best shoulder I went in thinking I was going to lose. I didn't go in thinking I was going to win because I was burned out, overtrained and uh, I just said, uh, you know I'm going to lose this fight, but I'm going to make it fight, I'm going to make it a fight. And then, after I lost the fight, I realized what a stupid mistake that was. If I'd have went in with the right attitude, I could have potentially won, but I didn't because I went in defeated already. So you have to go in with the mental attitude that you're going to win. Like, for instance, if you're taking a test in school and you say I'm not going to get an A, so I'll just do my best. But did you really do your best If you went in with the attitude I'm going to ace this thing? I know what I'm doing, I did my study and I did all my work. I'm going to ace this thing. More than likely you will ace it.
Speaker 2:So to me, it's how you put your mindset and what you did, what you did in preparation. So you can't say you're going to ace something and you didn't study the material and you didn't know the material. You have to know all those things. No-transcript be out thinking that I'm going to do something that he's better at than me and I'm going to outdo him in that. But that's the wrong strategy, because if he's better, why are you going to go and think you're going to finish him on something that he's better?
Speaker 2:You have to look at their weak points, like that chair that's got the four. You know, you got a chair right, you got the four legs right, and then this one's broken a little bit right. Are you going to attack the strong ones or are you going to go for the broken one? No, for the broken one, because it's going to crumble right. So that's the kind of mentality you have to have in fighting.
Speaker 2:You have to look at where can I expose this individual or her? Where can I expose her if it be a female fighter, you know? Where can I expose her or him, if a male fighter, well, you have to look at them, you have to study them, you have to see where they're good at, where you're better at than they are, where you're weaker than they are. So then you've got to devise the game plan. Game plan is extremely important and I always tell my fighters I go, we're not playing checkers, we're playing chess. So with checkers it's like everybody knows the rules, this and that. Mma is entirely different. There's so many disciplines involved in MMA and if you don't know how to use your knight, your bishop, your queen, your pawns, they could go bad. They can go really bad.
Speaker 1:How often do you have to try reprogram your fighters into changing their mindset? Like, has there been any times where you know they've been soft out and like how they're going to perform on the day, or has there been any situations like that that you really have to coach the mindset? Or has there been any situations that you really have to coach the mindset?
Speaker 2:I have to coach mindset a lot, not in one time, many, many times because sometimes they have illusions that they're going to do something that I know they can't. So the fighter will say, well, I'm going to go and stand with him. And I said, what? What are you talking about? You're going to go stand with him, you can't outstrike him. You can't outstrike him. You can't do this guy's 10 years of fighting to your six months of fighting per se. You can't do that. I go, you need to go. Your 10 years of wrestling versus his one year of wrestling. So that's where you want to go. So I do that all the time. That's very common, very, very common. And now it's getting to the point where so many people are so well-rounded now. But now it becomes a little bit more trickier. Now you've got to really analyze where you're better and be realistic. Some people are too unrealistic of what their fighters can do. You have to be realistic of what your fighter can do.
Speaker 1:Has there been any stage in your career where you've said certain things?
Speaker 2:and you think you've pushed it too far mentally with your fighters. Yeah, big time, big time. I I've, uh, I didn't recognize, uh, one of my fighters, kane velasquez. Um, you know, he'd get injured all the time and, um, I'd never per se pushed him per se, but I didn't stop him because, uh, he just could do things, he had incredible cardio so he would be doing things and and, uh, he was getting injured all the time. Born torn knee, his, his elbow, his shoulder, you know, would always get injured. And I'm like when? What the heck's going on with this guy, you know? So I, um, I never stopped him from up from, I just let him go because he seemed like flying and it wasn't until I asked him one day. I said, hey, I go, man, you get injured a lot, I go. This was way into his career, when he was already a champion, you know. And I said, did you ever get injured in wrestling? He goes, no, I was like what?
Speaker 2:The heck you know, I was like what the heck? You know I'm thinking ah, now I got it. Because Cain used to do this thing. When he sparred He'd say I'm hot, I'm hot, I'm hot, and I go. Well, relax, relax. He goes I'm hot, I'm hot, I'm hot. I said Cain, relax. And then the third time he said I'm hot, I'm hot. I said Cain. I said relax, just relax. And he goes. You don't get it, I go. What do you mean? He goes I'm hot, my body's hot. I went ah, so then I would pour water on him, give him extra water and pour water on his head.
Speaker 2:You know so he was like he was an engine overheat, oh yeah, so I'm like, so I'm starting to think, oh my god, he's killing his body and I'm like an idiot, me, I'm not monitoring it and stopping them. So all the injuries were happening because he was overheating. So when you get a car that overheats, what happens? It breaks down. Well, that was what was happening with him. So I went darn it. You know big, big mistake on my part. So I've gotten better by the mistakes that I didn't pick up as a coach and some of the mistakes I made.
Speaker 1:So, yes, have you ever had that conversation with your fighters that you know? Like pretend you said look, I'm sorry for this yes, yeah, yes. He took an ownership of it.
Speaker 2:Of course, you know I learned before I was not that kind of a coach until one of my fighters back in the day named Josh Koschek. I would throw him underneath the bus because of things he didn't do, which he didn't do. And so the you know the interviewer would ask me well, what a lot. I said well, he knows what to do. He just didn't do it, you know, and he got really mad at me. He would get pissed off at me all the time. He'd come in front of me and he said what the hell does it matter with you? Why are you throwing this? I said because the coach is supposed to protect us. And I go. I just told the truth. I told you what you have a problem with. Why are you doing this and that? And I didn't see it his way.
Speaker 2:I saw an interviewer ask me a question. I'm just responding to the right question, I'm answering the correct answer. And after he said that I start thinking about it. I go. God dang it. He's right. I'm the father, I'm the mother. They're looking upon me. If they didn't do something, maybe I didn't tell them, it shouldn't be their fault that I didn't tell them. It's my fault. And if I did tell them and they didn't do it again. It's my fault. I had to take ownership for that. So he taught me that. So my fighters have taught me to be a better coach by by you know things of that nature. So, yeah, I've gotten better because of people like josh koschek, who I had wars with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think sometimes you need to be challenged to see the buying points and what you're. You're acting um. So how did you start working with kane?
Speaker 2:uh, I started working with kane back in. Uh, I believe it was 2006. Wow, uh, the wayne jink zinkins was the manager for our fighters. I was part of the management with him and he said Hobb, I got the, I got the, I got your next world champion. He says the guy's got cardio for days. His his wrestling coach, tom Ortiz, said this guy's got cardio like you wouldn't believe, and this and that, and and I said okay, I'm sounding interesting. Then and I go, what's his name? He goes kane velasquez.
Speaker 2:I lost interest right away when he said kane velasquez. I said okay, I was like some fat, overweight mexican, you know, because mexicans aren't that big right, so I'm thinking that's not a big deal. So, um, I'm saying, okay, in comes k Velasquez. And I'm up on the ring watching Guy Spar and Cassandra Clark, who brought Cain from the airport. Goes, cobb, your fighter's here.
Speaker 2:And I looked. And I looked again. I said he looked very fit, right. I said this doesn't look like a regular Mexican I'm used to seeing. And I said hey, hi, how you doing, hi, how you doing. I go. Oh, I thought you would have been bigger, right, and I was joking. And he goes oh, yeah, yeah, I, I have to gain weight for wrestling, because 285 is the pounds, is the top of the weight for them. So so he was like about 250. So he gained about 30 pounds or so for wrestling, or maybe a little less, but he had to be in the 265 to 285 range, you know. So I was laughing when I told him that you know, and he was sincere, but I was joking because I didn't. I did not see that coming.
Speaker 1:So how was the coaching career with Kane? What kind of person was he like to coach?
Speaker 2:Kane was a joy to coach. At the very beginning he was very quiet, he didn't goof around, he just, you know, he did what he was told. It got to the point where we bonded so well together that I got to love him and he taught me something about myself that you know because of my childhood, growing up in Mexico and coming to the United States and being accused of being a wetback wetback I didn't want to speak Spanish. I didn't want anybody to know I was from Mexico. I didn't have a problem being Latino and Mexican. I was very proud of that. But I didn't want to be from Mexico because I was tortured as a kid. I had to beat these people up for that and so I didn't want that on me. So when my father would get drunk and be shooting the gun, whatever he'd play the Mexican music, I hated it so bad I was like ah, you know, it's like anything related to we're from Mexico. I didn't like. So Cain was actually born in.
Speaker 1:Similar background, don't you?
Speaker 2:No, he was born in the USA, he was born in Salinas, and so his father was actually illegal. His father crossed the border and his father married his mother, who was legal, and of course that's how that became. But we're not similar, we're opposite of each other. Because he was born in the US, I was born in Mexico, but he gravitated to the heritage of being Mexico. He even had his tattoo on his thing called Brown Pride, which some people think is gang-related, but no, not even close. It's just being brown and being proud of being brown, you know.
Speaker 2:And so Cain would want to play Mexican music while we're working out and I'm like, hey, no, we're not playing that. Here he goes. Why, dude? I said no, I don't want to play that. Here he goes. Dude, I want to listen to this, I go. No, we're not listening to this. No, no, no, no. So next thing, you know, he wore on me and finally I'm playing the Mexican music and I'm actually liking it, you know.
Speaker 2:And now, actually, the majority of the songs I listen to are Latin music. I love songs like Marco Antonio Solis. I listen to his songs all the time. I'm always on my music and I always Marco Antonio Solis and all the songs that are related to that. So I'm very, very proud of the fact that I was actually born in Mexico.
Speaker 2:I show up more now than ever and I speak Spanish now, whereas before I wouldn't. No way I would ask someone to say to me hey, you know, they want to speak to me and I say I'm sorry, I don't speak Spanish. Sí, no, te veras que no hablas español. No, I say no. So they cuss me out in Spanish because they call me like a what do you call it? A? Coconut, because here I'm, you know, here I'm a Mexican and I don't speak Spanish. So they call me coconut in Spanish and I couldn't respond because I told them I didn't speak Spanish, you know. So that happened a lot, and now you will hear me. In my gym I played Latin music, you know, and my son, who doesn't speak Spanish at all, does not speak Spanish at all, don't understand it. He works out to Latino music, you know, and I'm like kind of proud of that that. Here's my son taking the opposite direction of his dad and he's he's half, he's, he's half, he's half Mexican's half mexican, half half, uh, hungarian and german you know.
Speaker 1:So yeah, not half, but yeah I'll get the math, I get the math. So we came. When was last time you saw him?
Speaker 2:uh, the last time I saw him was, uh, at my gym, um before I came here, and uh, they gave him the five-year sentence and I haven't been able to get in touch with him. I've been trying. He tried to call me from the prison where he's at, but he hasn't been able to get a hold of me because it's kind of hard for me to get calls over here. So I spoke to his daughter and she says I don't think you're allowed to make calls from over here to over there, I think Something like that. But people are in touch with them, it's just I haven't been able to be in touch with them.
Speaker 1:For the listeners. What exactly happened? How did you find out that news?
Speaker 2:About what happened to him. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, what happened to him is he had his beautiful son, little Cain, into a daycare center and he found out that the daycare's son was molesting him. So Cain reported him to the police. The police took him in and, for whatever reason, they didn't believe that the guy was really doing it, so they released him. No, ain't no bail. No, nothing, just released him. Well, Cain finds out that the guy was really doing it. So they released them. No, and no bail. No, nothing, just released them.
Speaker 2:Well, kane finds out that the guy was released, he freaks out, he's not thinking clearly and, uh, he gets his gun and he goes um searching for the guy. So he first goes to the parents place and he's waiting outside, uh, for for the parents to go where he's at. So the parents knew Cain was behind them, but they didn't call the police. But they knew the guy, that Cain was behind them. So basically, when they went to pick up his son, that's when Cain went in a high car chase and after them and firing the bullets at them, et cetera, which is a big, big no-no, because there was a lot of people potentially could be in danger. But he saw fire, he big, big no-no, because there was a lot of people potentially could be in danger. But he saw fire. He saw just anger and hurt, you know, and he wasn't thinking properly. And then so, anyways, when the police came, he surrendered with no incident. He put himself on the ground right away. He told them the guns in the car, you know. So everything was what you should be doing when you're thinking clearly. But the raise he had in him, uh was not.
Speaker 2:And uh, we did all uh e egg tests on our brain to see what our motor functions are, what we're good at, what we're not good at, and uh, they wanted to do our ours, you know a bunch of our fighters to see comparison to Kane and found out that on me everything was fantastic except organization. I'm horrible at organization. I rated like a 67 on making things neat and organized horrible I. I did bad, bad and and, and now I realize why I can't do it. I still can't organize things properly. I'll neat things up clean, wise, okay, but perfect, floating, floating, uh, folding the, the clothes and things of that nature, putting the furniture properly. I'm just, I have no tolerance for it, you're organized chaos I'm organized chaos for sure.
Speaker 2:Well, cane Cain has zero impulse, zero impulse control. So zero, zero thought process, zero impulse control. So what that means is, if you anger him, which is what happened in this case, the love of your child being molested and this animals out there on the loose got him to go nuts. He wasn't thinking, so he went and fired the gun, you know, and that's why they got him. But you know what? Who knows what could have happened if he hadn't went to that person in person and met him man to man.
Speaker 2:He probably would have destroyed that guy. You know, because I know me personally, because I don't have his issue I would have thought it out, I said it in an interview. I would have thought it out and I said it in an interview. I would have had that guy disappear and I would have been around and I would have spat in his face when I did it. And.
Speaker 2:I would have. I would have done that. If it my child, I would have done that, you know. So I know who I am, I know what I can do and I know what kind of control I have. He couldn't control any of it and, as a matter of fact, when he got the five years from the judge, the prosecutors wanted to give him 30 years. They wanted to give him 30 years and the judge didn't do that. The judge basically gave him five-year maximum, which is the least he could do, but he couldn't just let Cain go on scot-free which I'm hoping he would have and the judge, from what I was told, my friends were there in the trial because I was here and they said the judge was practically in tears when his sentence came. He didn't want to.
Speaker 2:He did not want to do that, and the ironic thing about this is this great judge was going to retire the following week, so he had to make sure that he got Cain in the system with him so he can give him a good you know the best sense he's going to give us.
Speaker 2:Anybody else who knows what they would have did to make a name for themselves? Who knows if they would have tried to give him 30 years or whatnot, and that would have happened. It would have been a tragedy, because if there's anything that Cain needs, it's not that. And the thing that's sad is his son, little Cain, is still going through the court case with the molester. So their court case has started. So Cain's not going to be there with his son. So the son is not going to understand why his father's not there with him. So it's going to be sad for his son and for Cain too, because he can't be there other than probably the court time, but he can't be there at night with his son when he needs him the most.
Speaker 1:That's so difficult.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's very difficult.
Speaker 1:How do you think his career is going to be after this?
Speaker 2:I believe his career is going to be fantastic after this because of what he stood for, what he did, and how many people are going to want his story and how many people are going to want to make a movie out of it. He's a movie. He's definitely a movie, 100%, 100% a movie. He is definitely a movie, a hundred percent, a hundred percent a movie. He is such a beautiful person and I know that he's going to get out earlier than expected, which will be hopefully before March or in March for good behavior, and what that means is that he's going to sign up for programs that's going to help the inmates and the prison guards, and I can tell you without a doubt that the inmates love him and the prison guard is going to love him also, because he's that kind of a person.
Speaker 1:He's an attribute.
Speaker 2:He's a beautiful guy.
Speaker 1:So, when it comes coaching, have you ever had to shut down talent because the mindset wasn't there?
Speaker 2:I've had some tough ones, but no, no, I never gave up on that. I cannot, I can never give up and I still to this day, will not. And if it's not working, I'm. If he's fighting, I'm not stopping. He's not fighting, Okay, I'm not going to work the mindset for him on that particular fight. But if he's continued to fight and I didn't get to him, I'll still try to the end it and I didn't get to them.
Speaker 1:I'll still try to the end. It's important. Maybe I won't try as hard, but I'm still going to try. How often do you feel like you know you're responsible for these fighters' lives, like, essentially like a father figure for these guys?
Speaker 2:I feel the ones that I'm personally involved with, like on the training camp, I feel totally responsible for them, totally responsible. But outside of that I don't, because I'm out. When I'm out of the training I'm in my own world, you know, I'm in my own world so I can't say, oh, I'm always calling and finding out how they're doing. No, I rarely call. Once in a while I'll call, you know, see how they're doing. The one I keep in touch with the most is Habib, and then the next one after that would be Umar, and then after that Cain, then Usman and then Islam. Those are the ones that I keep in touch with. But the retired ones out of all my retired ones, two big ones, it's Cain and Habib. Those are two big ones for me. I keep in touch with them all the time when I can kane. Of course, obviously I can't right now, but when he's, when he'll be out, I will be in touch with him did you have any idea that khabib was gonna hang like to cut off his career?
Speaker 1:or, like you know, did you have any idea at all?
Speaker 2:like, no, like no, no, I no, no idea. I was in. I was in, uh, after the victory. I'm sitting there and he's making his speech and I'm happy. Then then I got this smile on my face and he goes I, I'm retiring, I cannot do this. But he does not. His words, but you know, I don't remember the words he said. But I, I can't do this, uh, with father blah, blah blah. And so he's retiring. And all of a sudden I went in my mind I'm going oh, I hit the Brinks truck, I got a load of money. Now someone just robbed me and right away though right away as I did that, I said ah, it's good for him, I'll figure out a ways, I'll make money my own way. I never relied on anybody. So I did enter my mind I'll go, there's my money, fly out the door, because as a coach, as a coach, you got to understand you don't make that much money until you have a superstar like him. Then you're making money.
Speaker 2:I mean, you're making serious money yeah so when he left and I still haven't had a superstar like him that makes that kind of money and I probably I don't know if I ever will maybe, maybe uzman, you know, maybe maybe uzman, maybe umar, I don't know, but uh, uh, islam won't be around too much longer. He makes really good money, but not habib money. Yeah, very few people made habib money, so that was great for me, but again, I didn't. It wasn't about the money. I. I trained those guys for free. I love those guys, so it had nothing to do with the money. I trained those guys for free. I love those guys, so it had nothing to do with the money with them.
Speaker 1:Was there any camera on your face during that stage where you could actually see it on your face?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I hope not, because I think I have a poker face when it comes to that. So I don't think I went. Oh, I think I was probably silent. You probably couldn't read me, you know, but if someone was an expert on that, they probably say I think mendes just had a heart attack yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, I think so so how much money can a coach make?
Speaker 2:um, if you're at the top top uh, you know where I was you can. You can make up to a million plus a year. If you have a top top guy, like you know, they pay the right percentage, yeah.
Speaker 1:I can see from watching documentaries on Khabib as well, he wasn't very money oriented.
Speaker 2:No, no, he's not about money. He's about, you know, work ethic. He's about discipline, family, religion. You know that's who he is. He's not about flashy stuff. No, he has nice stuff, don't get me wrong. But he's not about flashy stuff. No, he has nice stuff, don't get me wrong. But he's not gonna buy a lamborghini. He's like he's gonna look at that. Why, why? Why buy this, why I need this? You know, oh, they're all that way. All those guys are that way, then they're not too flashy at all. The flashiest guy out of them, of the champions, would be uzman, and uzman's not flashy at all either. Just clothes. He dresses real nice, you know, gq style, but that's it. He's, he's not. He's not one of those flashy guys either when it comes to cars or anything like that. And he has good money too, but he, he doesn't show it. He doesn't show how much money he actually has or what he could do.
Speaker 2:He can have all those cars, but he, uzman, doesn't do that I think that's helped them it's helped them big time and it all comes from habib's father and Habib's father's brothers, which is Usman's father. So it all got instilled by the families. The families instilled good work ethics on their sons and it's just a family-run atmosphere over there. When you're around there and I'm going to go there in August, so I'll be around family It'll be family. It'll be like nothing you've ever experienced. Experienced the way they treat me over there. It's like I feel like I'm at home.
Speaker 1:What's it like in Dagestan?
Speaker 2:Dagestan is beautiful. When I go to Dagestan it's almost like I never have to pay for any dinner or anything, because the restaurant people would come. They're on the restaurants, they would come out of their, so they see me walk by and they want me to come in. They buy my food for me, they take care of it you have fires.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've even had people normal people that come through and they see me. They come, take a photo with me and then I go to pay my bill and they go no. I say I paid my bill and they go no, no. So I said I paid my bill and they go no, no, it's also a person to take care of your bill. That happens a lot, a lot. That's how great the hospitality over there is and how well they treat you. If you're a Habib coach or related to the Habib team, you get treated with unbelievable respect and when I go to Dagestan I feel like home.
Speaker 1:How do you manage fame?
Speaker 2:Well, I manage fame. I'll tell you how I manage fame. I take the words of what I used on Habib to myself too. In 2017, you know, before Habib was a champion, habib was getting a lot of attention, a lot of press coverage, a lot of everything. And Habib goes. Coach, I so tired, I so tired, I go. Habib tired, why are you tired? He goes. Oh, so many people, so many interviews, I tired, I go. Oh, I go, habib, you want it to go away? He goes. Yes, yes, coach, I want to go away. How I go? Simple, just lose Cause. Then nobody's going to want to see you. He goes. Okay. Okay, coach, I got it. I got it. Now I got it.
Speaker 2:So that went stuck to him forever. He knows you have to accept your responsibility. If you don't like it, then don't win. Don't be a winner, don't be successful. If you don't like the attention, do that Because you're in the sport where that's required. So he goes, he got it. He got it. Ever since then.
Speaker 1:he's never had a problem with it have you had any issues of like you know, behind the scenes of being a famous person where something bad has happened, essentially because you're known who you are?
Speaker 2:no, I've. I've uh, the only I don't get behind the scenes. No, I've never had anything bad happen. I do get once in a great while I'll get, uh, had anything bad happen. I do get once in a great while I'll get uh, I'll get some bad, uh, you know emails or I'll get. I'll get some some bad text messages or instagram messages, and not too often, but every once in a while I'll get something because I said something about their favorite fighter or I said something that's maybe not accurate in their eyes, so they'll cuss me out and they'll do things.
Speaker 2:And I responded to some and in one particular case, a guy was chewing out my guys and saying we're a bunch of this, we're a bunch of that, and I sent him a response and my response was perfect. I thought he was going to come back and go. Oh, you're right, I'm so sorry because I've done that. I was going to come back and go. Oh, you're right, I'm so sorry Because I've done that. I've made people come back and they apologize for their remarks. And this is when I realized you can't change everybody. The guy says and he's a businessman. So I thought for sure he was going to be on my side and he comes back.
Speaker 2:I don't give a F. He goes. I hate your team and I hate you. So f you guys and I went. How am I gonna combat that? What am I gonna? He said all these things about me. How am I gonna just say well, you, you gotta like us. No, you don't have to like us. You you're either a Madrid fan or you're Chelsea fan, or and they don't mix, you know. So that's when I realized I go. You're not gonna get everybody, so I don't try anymore as much. Once in a great while I'll get somebody that says something bad. For the most part, no.
Speaker 1:Sport has been one of the biggest lessons that you've learned from Khabib that he wouldn't know about.
Speaker 2:The biggest lessons I learned from Khabib.
Speaker 1:That he doesn't know. That you've learned from Because, as a coach, right, you learn a lot from the people that you work with, even though they don't actually realize. So what would that be?
Speaker 2:That's a hard one, because he knows everything I know because I discuss it with him.
Speaker 1:What did he teach you?
Speaker 2:Loyalty, which was why I was loyal, and he taught me that he's loyal. Also, family, which he shows it all the way, all the time, generous the more wealth he had, the more generous he became. I mean, he does certain things like you know, like for the Coca-Cola arena here, he might very well buy 100 tickets for family members and friends and he'll fly them down and things of that nature. He does things like that. I was just meeting one of the ministers here from Dubai the other day and they were talking about they took Habib somewhere and Habib bought all the merchandise, all of it. Bought all the merchandise because he is giving it to people.
Speaker 2:I mean, he is such a beautiful person, he's a very thoughtful person. I had people at home such a beautiful person and he's a very thoughtful person. I had people at home that used to come and help clean the gym for free. They come in because they want to contribute. Habib would fly this individual. He'd fly him down to the events where we were at, put him up in a hotel, get him tickets, and those are the type of things that he does that I don't know anybody else that does that and uh, what I did learn about him is what a great humanitarian he is. He does a lot of uh of charity work, uh, but he doesn't tell people what he does. He never will, and you want to acknowledge it. You know because obviously, when you're as famous as he is, you have everybody coming at you. So he has a charity organization called Tuba. I think Tuba he helps, so a lot of the people were helped through there, through his organization. I don't know if it's his, but he donates there.
Speaker 1:What has been the biggest lesson that you've learned through your whole coaching career? Now that's impacted your life today.
Speaker 2:The biggest lesson I learned is that I don't know everything. I can learn from everybody and I can still, to this day, learn from people that don't even know the sport you know, so I don't close my mind. That's that, to be honest with you. I know it's strange, but that is the biggest lesson I learned that that you can come in and you can watch practice and you may say something that this brilliant, that I may never have thought of, whereas before, in the past, I would have crossed you out because you don't know anything about the sport. How can I listen to you? Well, that's not true. You know the Bruce Lee saying about empty your cup. You know your cup is empty. So someone comes in with knowledge. Listen to the knowledge. If it fits in the cup, let it.
Speaker 1:Let it fill the cup you just mentioned bruce lee, who's been your role model uh, my role model for me was, uh, not bruce lee, it was muhammad ali.
Speaker 2:well, bruce lee, what bruce lee was was somebody I admired because his way of thinking still to this day is ahead of his time in the martial arts, self-defense, street altercations type situations. And he was the first, in my opinion, the real, you know, mixed martial artists that used different styles to benefit his fighting. He was the very first one that had that, because here we had the Gracies who had the greatest style of all Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. Without Gracie Jiu-Jitsu you couldn't be who you are now. But Bruce Lee had in him way before that to not just use Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, use Judo, use Taekwondo, use kenpo, use taekwondo, kenpo and his jeet kune do and all this other stuff. So Bruce Lee had all that in his mind. And also weapons he would have a belt and he'd have a knife in the belt. So he was prepared for life or death situations also. So he had the whole thing. But as far as idols, know it was Muhammad Ali.
Speaker 1:So when you started coaching, did you ever feel like you were gonna ever have this empire that you have now of fighters that you've had? No, you are did you ever envision this? Did you ever rehearse it mentally?
Speaker 2:I didn't think I was gonna be where. I think I was going to be where I'm at. I wanted to be where I'm at. My goal was to be where I'm at, but where I was going to be I don't know. But I'll give you an example of what my mind was thinking during these times.
Speaker 2:Back in 2009, I went to Mexico with Cain Velasquez to start, you know, getting him attention for Mexico, because we wanted the Mexican audience for Mexico. So we did interviews and while I was doing the interview, one of the interviewers asked me he said how does it feel to be one of the best Latino coaches in the world? And it was a weird question for me. I said I don't know. I'm not trying to be the best Latino coach in the world. I want to be recognized amongst the best coaches in the world. Nothing to do about being Latino. So I didn't want to be put in that category Latino coaches only. No, I'm going to compete with the best in the world. That was it. That was my mentality. That was what I wanted. I don't want to be considered the best Mexican coach ever. Forget it.
Speaker 2:No, no, there's a world out there and the world's competing. I want to be recognized as a world coach and that was my mental attitude. My son is the same way and I teach him the same thing. I go you know, be better than your dad, don't be like me. Be better, because if you're not better than me, then you're not going to reach anything. What I am is like a dinosaur now in the days of mixed martial arts. So if you don't evolve, you're going to get swallowed up. So you have to improve. So, uh, the mentalities always get better what's the future for you?
Speaker 2:uh, the future for me, um, is I'll coach. Till the rest of my life I'll be coaching and if everything works out with the Dubai Sports Council, I'll have an AK here and hopefully bring up a lot of Emirati fighters to the world stage. That's my goal, that's what I'm trying to pitch right now and that's what we're in the works right now with the, with the Eastside, and then Halifan, which is the sports council minister. I'm in discussions with them and they liked the idea, but let's see how far we get. But that's the goal. And one of my fighters, hadi, he's working on, he's opening up the first AKA is going to be in Al Ain. And then I also have another brother of mine that I met from from Abu Dhabi. His name is Ahmed and he's a colonel for special forces from Abu Dhabi. His name is Ahmed and he's a colonel for special forces in Abu Dhabi and he is in the process of working with Hadi and doing an AKA over there. So Dubai, uae, you know, is going to see four or five, six AKAs coming soon.
Speaker 1:So who's going to be the next? I suppose world champion that you see, that's kind of underrated at the moment.
Speaker 2:The underrated one well, he's not underrated, I think everybody knows he's going to be destined for greatness is Amroul Amroul Maghrebadov, I think Maghrebadov. He's the UAE lightweight champion. He's unbelievable. He's Usman's main aspiring partner and also his best brother. And the other one is Mohamed Alarak. He fought in the MENA tournament. He fought in the finals last year and didn't quite make it, Because there's a lot of things, not just physical, it's the mental, and you have to have the right everything to go in. And he kind of lost a little bit there and messed up one second and that cost him the fight. But he's back in the tournament, he's passed the first stage, so he's got two more fights to go. He's in the semifinals. So I give him the other opportunities. So those two, I think, could be world champions. But the other opportunities, so those two I think could be world champions. But Mohamed would be the first one that people won't think of because he's an Emirati, Not Emirati he's a.
Speaker 2:Kuwaiti. So he's Arab descent and I think I said it before that I think he's going to be a superstar in the Arab world and I still say that. I still say that Mohamed Al-Arq would be that.
Speaker 1:Where are the best sportsmen like, or fighters? Where did they come from?
Speaker 2:generally speaking, I know you've already said Dagestan- but, generally speaking, you know, to be honest with you, right now the strongest camp in the world is Habib's camp in Mahachkala. I think they are right now, presently the strongest, but they come from Brazil, they're coming from Mexico, they're coming from everywhere, everywhere, every country is starting to get good fighters from their region. So USA, you know, and hopefully soon Emirates here, uae, you know, hopefully we'll have some here. The whole world is starting to come into place, but right now the strongest is is, like you said, uh, you know why do you think that?
Speaker 1:do you think it's like um people have more options to resources, more information, access to better coaches? Or why do you think the progressions happen?
Speaker 2:well, the progressions happened over there because, like habib said, uh, before football was their number one and all the kids would go to football. But since Habib came in and developed all himself, and now Islam and Usman and Umar all these guys are becoming champions. All the kids want to be like them. So number one sport now in Dagestan is MMA. So that's why it's the strongest in the world, because so many kids participate in it and they got great coaching, you know. So if you had the same amount of kids participating in it, like in here in Emirati, you'd have the same thing. You'd have the diamonds in the rough and you can make them champions. You know you can't make someone a champion, but you can identify the champion and help develop into the champions that they're meant to be because this is called the detached podcast.
Speaker 1:What would you detach yourself away from? That is limiting you today detach yeah that's limiting me yeah, any limitations, anything that's getting in the way of that mindset, yours, yours.
Speaker 2:My heart. I need to stop thinking with my heart. Use my heart and my brain, because that's what's cost me is. I do things because I care about someone, I want to do good for somebody, but I'm not thinking clearly. So if I'm going to detach anything, I'm going to detach my heart from my brain, because my heart doesn't work that well. It's too generous.
Speaker 2:I think that's what makes you a great coach, it's my heart and my brain. Put those together, because if I use my heart, I would uh, you know it's believe it or not, it's both in my heart. My heart it just cares too much, and then that's a great attribute to have, yes, but if I don't use my brain, with my heart, it won't work thank you so much for being on the podcast you're welcome, it's a pleasure.