Media What it's like to spar and grapple with Khabib Nurmagomedov

cooks1 said:
In 1989 when I was wrestling at Clemson, Kenny Monday popped in to roll with us. He was the Olympic Gold medalist in Freestyle at 74KG in 1988. Won Silver in 1992. He was a D-1 national champ at OSU in 1984, but it's not like he was a 4x D-1 national champ. But he had progressed considerably since then.

Now- I was not an elite college wrestler. Far from it. Never saw a varsity match at Clemson. But I at least competed with the starters that were on the squad. If I wrestled a match against the #1 guy in my weight class, I would lose like 8-2 or 10-3 or something like that. Which is a pretty sound drubbing at that level. But it's not like I was getting pinned every 45 seconds.

I got a single 2 minute round with Kenny. The only way I could describe it is to say it was like the earths gravitational pull on me was suddenly 10 times as strong. I could not free my wrists from him. I could not move an inch when I was on the bottom. I was simply unable to get my head, hips, legs or shoulders anywhere they needed to be.

When I shot in on him and he sprawled, it was like he sprawled forward not backward. Normally if you shoot in on someone and they do an effective sprawl, you are left flattened out holding onto a leg or something, and they just hop around. But with Kenny, I was just this concentrated knot of limbs crumpled into a space that was far too small for my mass.

Within a minute, he had racked up an incalculable number of exposure points on me before he pinned me. And he did the same again in the second minute. Felt like an hour.

Humbling is not a strong enough word.
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That’s a cool story brah! Thank God no one could do that to me because I was extremely strong and no one could get their way against me! I’m extremely humble also but no one can play with me technique no technique it doesn’t matter, I’m still too strong something I worked for since my early teens especially wrist strength and iron hand
 
Joe seems like a really cool kid. I wanna check out some of his fights.

And yeah, size and strength are tertiary parts of Khabib's game, if that. It's all about his distance management, balance, and connection. His fight IQ is just out of this world
 
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Khabib Fan said:
This is what religious people called being "clean". Compared to Frank Mir who boasts of telling people that he could have sex with them if he wanted to and they couldn't do anything to stop him.
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Some grapplers say that because they're confident they can control. That being said we can easily flip the script and say Lesnar and Carwin could have sex with him and he wouldn't do a damn thing about it.
 
All this wrestling talk reminds of high school showers. Some guys joined just for that part.
 
cooks1 said:
In 1989 when I was wrestling at Clemson, Kenny Monday popped in to roll with us. He was the Olympic Gold medalist in Freestyle at 74KG in 1988. Won Silver in 1992. He was a D-1 national champ at OSU in 1984, but it's not like he was a 4x D-1 national champ. But he had progressed considerably since then.

Now- I was not an elite college wrestler. Far from it. Never saw a varsity match at Clemson. But I at least competed with the starters that were on the squad. If I wrestled a match against the #1 guy in my weight class, I would lose like 8-2 or 10-3 or something like that. Which is a pretty sound drubbing at that level. But it's not like I was getting pinned every 45 seconds.

I got a single 2 minute round with Kenny. The only way I could describe it is to say it was like the earths gravitational pull on me was suddenly 10 times as strong. I could not free my wrists from him. I could not move an inch when I was on the bottom. I was simply unable to get my head, hips, legs or shoulders anywhere they needed to be.

When I shot in on him and he sprawled, it was like he sprawled forward not backward. Normally if you shoot in on someone and they do an effective sprawl, you are left flattened out holding onto a leg or something, and they just hop around. But with Kenny, I was just this concentrated knot of limbs crumpled into a space that was far too small for my mass.

Within a minute, he had racked up an incalculable number of exposure points on me before he pinned me. And he did the same again in the second minute. Felt like an hour.

Humbling is not a strong enough word.
Click to expand...
Great anecdote. Your description is incredibly vivid. Thanks for sharing.
 
Rum said:
Fighting is 90% mental and Khabib has a 190 IQ
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Khabib "I don't support hunting because I can always find meat to eat if I'm hungry so killing animals isn't necessary anymore these days" Nurarmageddonmeadow
 
n.diazismylife1999 said:
Khabib "I don't support hunting because I can always find meat to eat if I'm hungry so killing animals isn't necessary anymore these days" Nurarmageddonmeadow
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He's right. Most hunters hunt for the thrill of it, not because they want meat (which they also buy on top of the carcass they hunted)
 
true_fan said:
That’s a cool story brah! Thank God no one could do that to me because I was extremely strong and no one could get their way against me! I’m extremely humble also but no one can play with me technique no technique it doesn’t matter, I’m still too strong something I worked for since my early teens especially wrist strength and iron hand
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Kenny would kick your but. However, you are right about one thing. Some people are just too strong to be toyed with. Many people discuss going against a much more technical grappler in BJJ, wrestling, and other grappling based martial arts. They always overestimate their abilities just a little.
 
cooks1 said:
In 1989 when I was wrestling at Clemson, Kenny Monday popped in to roll with us. He was the Olympic Gold medalist in Freestyle at 74KG in 1988. Won Silver in 1992. He was a D-1 national champ at OSU in 1984, but it's not like he was a 4x D-1 national champ. But he had progressed considerably since then.

Now- I was not an elite college wrestler. Far from it. Never saw a varsity match at Clemson. But I at least competed with the starters that were on the squad. If I wrestled a match against the #1 guy in my weight class, I would lose like 8-2 or 10-3 or something like that. Which is a pretty sound drubbing at that level. But it's not like I was getting pinned every 45 seconds.

I got a single 2 minute round with Kenny. The only way I could describe it is to say it was like the earths gravitational pull on me was suddenly 10 times as strong. I could not free my wrists from him. I could not move an inch when I was on the bottom. I was simply unable to get my head, hips, legs or shoulders anywhere they needed to be.

When I shot in on him and he sprawled, it was like he sprawled forward not backward. Normally if you shoot in on someone and they do an effective sprawl, you are left flattened out holding onto a leg or something, and they just hop around. But with Kenny, I was just this concentrated knot of limbs crumpled into a space that was far too small for my mass.

Within a minute, he had racked up an incalculable number of exposure points on me before he pinned me. And he did the same again in the second minute. Felt like an hour.

Humbling is not a strong enough word.
Click to expand...

I love this story; thanks for sharing it.

I've felt something similar in judo - not quite to that degree, but enough to convince me the top was someplace I'd never be anywhere near. There, it's very often technique: things feel fine, feel fine, feel fine, and suddenly you're in the air on your way to the mat. They're just so quick and their timing is so exact that you don't feel the throw coming until it's too late to do anything about it.

And in both wrestling and judo, occasionally you'll just run into someone who's so strong it feels like you're in a vice. I'm a fairly strong guy myself, and have often been praised for my grip strength, and when these guys grab a hold of you, you can't move. The bend you down and you can't straighten, or they move you and you have to go with, or they get your sleeve and you can't pull away. It's a physical thing, sure, but it's a mental attack most of all. You drop first from confident to concerned, and just continue downward, even beyond the underdog mentality that you're outmatched but might be able to pull it off. Nope, once you feel that grip, you decide there's nothing you can do about it anymore, and you're just along for the ride for the rest of the match.
 
n.diazismylife1999 said:
Khabib "I don't support hunting because I can always find meat to eat if I'm hungry so killing animals isn't necessary anymore these days" Nurarmageddonmeadow
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he comes from dagestan, most of the meat they eat is good quality from local farms, it is not like in the US, Brazil, Europe where most of the meat is low quality, hence the utility of hunting your own food.

But in khabib's context, his opinion is right.
 
GreatSaintGuillotine said:
Joe seems like a really cool kid. I wanna check out some of his fights.

And yeah, size and strength are tertiary parts of Khabib's game, if that. It's all about his distance management, balance, and connection. His fight IQ is just out of this world
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He gets a lot of shit on twitter cause he caused his fight with Paddy Pimblett to get cancelled due to coming in heavy. His attitude that night didn't help him but he takes it well on twitter. I liked him on tuf
 
Beherit said:
he comes from dagestan, most of the meat they eat is good quality from local farms, it is not like in the US, Brazil, Europe where most of the meat is low quality, hence the utility of hunting your own food.

But in khabib's context, his opinion is right.
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{<huh}
 
I think we can reuse what Tank Abbott said about fighting Dan Severn
freddie-mercury-gif-13.gif
 
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