It’s no secret that Daniel Cormier holds Dagestani wrestlers and fighters in high regard.
The UFC Hall of Famer is well-known to be very good friends with both Khabib Nurmagomedov and his protege, Islam Makhachev, but Cormier could see the Russian invasion of MMA on the horizon long before the rest of us thanks to his time competing as an Olympic-level wrestler.
“When I started fighting I said, man, when these Russian dudes from these regions start to come, it’s going to be a problem because you know how good they were as wrestlers,” Cormier said on a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience. “What’s going to happen when these guys come into fighting? And it’s the same thing. You know, we were talking in the back, like Alexander Karelin. I looked at that picture and I was like, ‘ay that was a bad dude’. Just a monster, a monster and there have been many of them.”
Daniel Cormier Believes Khadzhimurat Gatsalov Would Have Beaten Jon Jones in MMA Fight
Among Russia’s top wrestlers, Cormier highlights one standout – Khadzhimurat Gatsalov.
Gatsalov bested Cormier in the semi-finals, securing a gold medal in Athens in 2004. Now coaching the Russian National Freestyle Team, Gatsalov aided Cormier in preparing for his bout against Jon Jones in 2014.
Cormier asserts that Gatsalov’s victories against elite wrestlers would have made him a threat to anyone in MMA.
“There was one guy that beat me in the Olympic semi-finals, name was Khadzhimurat Gatsalov. We’re lucky that son of a b**** didn’t fight because he would have beat everybody and Jon Jones included. Everybody would have got they a** whipped by that dude.”
Daniel Cormier Sends His Crew of Kids to Train in Russia
In fact, Cormier was so convinced that Dagestani wrestling was the path to becoming an elite competitor that he sent a group of kids to the country for an entire month to learn the sport alongside one of the greatest to ever do it.
“My kids on my wrestling team… This team now has all my youth club kids, they all wrestled for me in middle school when they were in seventh and eighth grade,” Cormier said. “They were doing their home school year. Reclassifying is a big thing in sports now where if you and I are supposed to graduate in 1998, we will reclassify to graduate in 1999.
“Bro, I took those kids when they were in seventh and eighth grade and I sent them to Dagestan for a month. They took all of their schoolwork and they went to Dagestan and Moscow for a month. Like eight or nine kids with two parents. I sent them to Russia, bro.
“The fact that their parents listened to me is crazy because they’re like, ‘Yo, you are out of your mind. We’re not sending our 13-year-old kids to Russia.’ They sent them, bro. We put them in some big jackets and I said, hey, I know if we want to be the best, they gotta be by these guys. And so we sent them.
“Khabib [Nurmagomedov] had them in his gym every day and Khabib is a great guy. He bought hotels for them. He’d feed them. He said, ‘Just get them here.'”
Daniel Cormier & Khabib have NO CHILL! 😬
Watch as they put Team AKA athletes through their paces!#ViolentMoney #VMTV #MMA #MMATwitter pic.twitter.com/HhEmPp8JXy
— Violent Money TV (@ViolentMoneyTV) July 7, 2021
Joe Rogan Marvels at Islam Makhachev’s Head-Kick KO Against ‘The Great’
Khabib Nurmagomedov retired from mixed martial arts while still sitting as the reigning UFC lightweight world champion. Today, his protege, Islam Makhachev carries on the legacy as the king of 155.
In October, Makhachev made his second successful defense of the lightweight title, dispatching featherweight champ Alexander Volkanovski via a brutal first-round head kick at UFC 294 in Abu Dhabi.
“The way he adjusted to Volkanovski in that second fight was pretty special,” Rogan said. The use of that left leg to the body and the high kick. The way he set that up. In all the possible endings to that fight that you could have seen, I never thought it would be a high-kick KO. Crazy.”
Watch the full clip below:
