WATCH: Nostalgic Training Video of Lightweight Kingpin Khabib Nurmagomedov Alongside Luke Rockhold, Daniel Cormier at AKA

Former lightweight kingpin, Khabib Nurmagomedov trained under the tutelage of his father majority of his career. However, his gym, coaches, and teammates at American Kickboxing Academy played a key role in his transition. Training alongside world champions like Luke Rockhold, Daniel Cormier, Cain Velasquez, and coach Javier Mendes truly evolved his career. 

Khabib excelled at wrestling and was introduced to the promotion under that guise. Over the year, his striking also began to bore great fruits in this career. The Dagestani mixed martial went toe to toe against formidable strikers like Conor McGregor, Dustin Poirier, Justin Gaethje, Edson Barboza, Michael Johnson, and many more.

How did the former world champion learn the art of striking while honing his skill as a mixed martial artist? Well, this video montage of his training back in 2012 will surely give you a brief idea of his determination and discipline.

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Khabib Nurmagomedov was an underrated striker

Fans and critics don’t really give the retired MMA fighter much credit for his striking ability. Surely, he relied heavily on his game plan to take his opponents down and submit them. In certain cases, he also used his excellent ground pound strategy to tire his opponent out. Evident by his impressive 4-round domination against Conor, Khabib was truly an all-rounder.

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He was the first UFC fighter in history to drop the Irish superstar with a punch. Noted that Nate Diaz indeed rocked him with a nice combination, but he was never knocked out prior to Khabib. This serves as a great testimony of AKA’s excellence in training fighters to become legitimate mixed martial artists.

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AKA has trained many world champions over the years, and now the next crop of fighters is already taking over. With Islam Makhachev proving his mettle in the lightweight division and other Dagestani fighters. Khabib has retired as an undefeated world champion and no in this second leg of his career he is hoping to take over the world as a coach and as a promoter with his new organization Eagle FC.