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How come you have your very first training camp here in Russia?
Well, I have never held a camp in Russia before. It's mostly been visits to Grozny, and in the city you don't hold training camps nearby.
Relatives and all the people there have different things to do. But now there was an Elbrus there too, with boxers that our Chechen national
team spent a week with. Running cross-country up that mountain in various ways. Well, I liked it so I came back here now to my own mountains,
that are even better.
And what would be the general advantage of having a camp in this environment?
I consulted with different coaches, they agreed that 3 weeks in the mountains here will be good for my lungs. I have these infections there,
about all sorts of health problems now. Alhamdulillah everything is gone now and we are restoring. Everyone says calmness is better than all
this intense training, and I can see now, I like it being more comfortable and everything.
Probably the energy of these native mountains, your homeland, can also give some boost for the motivation?
Of course, and it's completely different from the desert in Abu Dhabi. There is no such air to breathe there, where you can come out after
waking up and just take these big breaths of fresh air. There you have an AC, and come in from the car AC. That's probably why I suddenly
have had these illnesses also. I was there for 3 months that time preparing diligently and something still went wrong.
Also, I'm putting together a good team now. I've never had any doctors or nutritionists around me, so now they will be there too for regular
checks during camp. All this in big sports, I never thought of these different things. That something like this could happen, but for me now
I am prepared for that anything can happen. I don't want to let everyone down, people who are waiting to watch you. People are coming to me
in the streets and saying that 'we're waiting for your return' so we'll try anew soon.
I planned on discussing this later, but since we're already on the subject, what was the general reason of your withdrawal from the Whittaker fight?
So the immunity dropped by a lot, so they wanted me to just rest for a week. I did and felt better, but again wasn't myself. Ended up in the hospital.
To be honest I had a lot of headaches, and they explained something to me about stress or something like that. After two days in the hospital I got
back home but had orders to just rest for a week again. I did and felt better once more, but the same thing happened again. Ended up in the hospital
for the same reasons. The immunity had gotten so weak that I really couldn't do anything in training for a while, so the team and I decided to pull out.
So what was the consequences of your condition in the end, how long did you have to take off before trying to come back?
After the last hospital night, I did nothing for weeks, just rested and took my medicine. All the antibiotics, but those were finished already after
the second week. Then slowly coming back to shape, starting to fight step by step, and things went clean so now this week we started a camp of real training.
I saw that Sean Strickland accused you of a coin scam, something about Khamzat deceiving people and so on. What's the matter? What's he talking about?
Well, as we touched upon. My manager, I guess you can say, acted stupidly for me there. But I was also mistaken in this crypto, I don't understand them.
I trusted my manager. He asked people if the guy was to be trusted, then told my people that I could. So now we'll make this video, and like probably
any other athlete, don't even know how crypto works in general. I didn't even have time to watch the thing, just had the ad posted as was asked of me.
Well, people are also lost, so we had to look for one and found him. They forced him to make a video admitting it was all their fault, at least.
This I don't understand, I shouldn't have gone there, but I trusted my manager's experience. But like those who got lost, he also didn't got blamed
so there was only one person left.
But what is happening with your team? You don't like to talk about it, I don't know. But people are wondering why Andreas suddenly wasn't your coach
and then a part of your last camp again? This manager of your is also a bit of an incomprehensible deal. What is going on with your surroundings?
Well, I can tell you this, our personal business is between us as men. I don't want to be on camera, someone did this, something like that. There
were different moments between us that led to disagreement, which I don't even know how to explain now.
Are you disappointed in them or what are these moments?
That is this last moment a sign of. This whole crypto thing, I don't even know what to call it. In this regard it was another thing I found stupid,
and appointed me as somebody I'm not, all people think I am into deceiving somebody. I don't understand those things at all, what I understand is
my fists, struggle and what my manager tells me about everything on the side. I made the ad video, he uploaded it to twitter and instagram, he also
manages all those kinds of sponsorship deals. Well... let's see now, let's improve these "moments" for the better please.
But Sean Strickland pretty much knows that he used a forbidden move. That when somebody is down and struck with problems, you go ahaed to take advantage of it.
Not exactly noble and in general he has a few attacks on you, do you have some kind of personal animosity towards him or is it just to build up a future fight?
I think it's actually promotion for a future fight. Because after all, I won't walk away from this or that fight. I'll continue to fight while I'm still young,
while I still have strength and health. I want to fight to earn money, so most likely we'll meet at some moment.
