Javier Mendez Confirms Khabib Nurmagomedov’s Dominance as Team Leader Makes His Role as Head Coach Seem Secondary

Labeled the head honcho at American Kickboxing Academy, veteran tactician Javier Mendez has revealed that former student Khabib Nurmagomedov is a worthy successor.

Mendez, a long-time head coach at the San Jose facility, has led a host of fighters to Octagon gold during his tenure with the California gym. Including Russian phenom, Nurmagomedov, Mendez has also coached the trio of Daniel Cormier, Cain Velasquez, and Luke Rockhold to UFC championship gold.

But in the time since his retirement, Nurmagomedov has taken a firm stance on coaching at the American Kickboxing Academy. The Hall of Famer guided Islam Makhachev to the lightweight crown in 2022 and has been a huge part of his camps ever since.

Khabib has come into his own as a true leader in the camp, which has only gone on to make Mendez’s life easy. On his podcast, the AKA head coach admitted to as much.

“Khabib (Nurmagomedov) is the number one most important person in Islam’s (Makhachev) corner, for sure. He’s becoming that for all of them to be honest with you“, he said. 

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I don’t coach you guys, and I’m not the head coach, I am the head coach. But as a head coach, I lay back and I let the person that’s actually the real leader be the leader. And he’s the real leader“, he asserted. 

Besides Islam, Khabib had also trained his cousin, Usman Nurmagomedov, to an impressive Bellator MMA title reign since his emergence in the promotion.

And while he did fail to guide another relative, Umar Nurmagomedov, to bantamweight gold at UF. C 311 in January, Nurmagomedov did watch on as Makhachev routed his 3-titlte defense record at lightweight that same night.

 

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Unsurprisingly, all the fighters he trains also carry a shade of himself in them. And while they all retain their individual styles of fighting, Khabib ensures that his own work ethic carries over into their performances.

Khabib pushes his students to the limit

Appearing to take the same heavy-handed approach as his late father, Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov, Khabib has been quite the aggressor while coaching his current crop of fighters.

And briefly taking a hiatus from coaching last year, Khabib- who retired boasting an unbeaten 29-0 professional record explained his decision as to why.

He claimed coaching is a “headache” – since he can’t assert the dominance he used to display in the octagon anymore.

“This life, like coaching life, it’s completely different than fighting life,” Khabib told ESPN.

“I can only talk, I cannot do nothing. I can only give my brothers advice and stay outside of the cage. This is not what I’m used to do all my life. That’s why it’s a little bit of a headache”, he had admitted.

However, this doesn’t mean anybody gets away easily. Drilling his fighters to no end, notably Khabib managed to almost step-for-step guide Makhachev to his title eliminator win over Dan Hooker back in 2021.

And even though 4 years have passed since then, Makhachev still often finds himself being graded a solid B+ after taking breaks during training. He might be the best lightweight the UFC has ever seen, but on the matt, the champion is just another of Khabib’s students.