After taking retirement, Khabib Nurmagomedov took his late father Abdulmanap’s place as the Dagestani brotherhood’s new coach. However, as ‘The Eagle’ took on this new responsibility, fans cannot help but ask: How does he compare with his father? Well, walking in the shoes of a legendary Russian coach is definitely a tough ask. But the former 155 lbs champ’s cousin, Usman Nurmagomedov, seems almost afraid when talking about Khabib’s sessions. Why?

On February 7, the undefeated lightweight champ is all set to defend his title at PFL Dubai. Set to face a strong contender like Alfe Davis, Usman is currently training under Khabib’s supervision. And since the Dagestani has trained under both ‘The Eagle’ and his late father, the 27-year-old revealed that coach Abdulmanap was much easier during training compared to his son. 

Usman Nurmagomedov reveals Khabib is a much stricter coach than his father

“Exactly what he said like that. Very hard. Even today I try to tell him, I feeling a little weak. I’m feeling not bad, and he said, “If it’s feeling like 50/50, like you want to train but don’t want. It means you want. Go ahead, and he beginning to grapple with me and we grappled for 20 minutes. It was after drills, like after training… it’s hard to explain to him that I’m tired. I trying to doesn’t tell him ‘I’m tired’. Brother, his father was more easy to be honest. 100%.” Usman told MMA Fighting in a recent interview.

Well, that definitely sounds like an excruciatingly tiring training regimen. But the PFL lightweight champ isn’t the only one going through this hellish routine. The newly crowned two-division champ, Islam Makhachev, who also trained under Abdulmanap’s regime, has revealed intense details about Khabib’s training methods.

According to a BJJ News article from January 2025, the 170 lbs champ revealed that ‘The Eagle’ makes fighters perform boxing in the gym for 12 rounds, and then has them run marathons afterward. If that sounds tough enough, their remaining process includes MMA drills. While Usman Nurmagomedov showed resentment towards the training, he also displayed gratitude towards Khabib for making them stronger.

“I’m very happy that we have Khabib for pushing us like that. Even if we’re telling like, ‘Oh he try to k—l us.’ But this is the way we can grow,” Usman added in the interview.

After Usman and Islam’s testimonies on Khabib’s dictator-like training methods, it does create curiosity about why the former lightweight champ does it. Fortunately, ‘The Eagle’ has already addressed that.

‘The Eagle’ explains why he takes such a strict approach to coaching fighters

If you’re familiar with the origins of the Russian UFC star, his motto has always relied on hard work to achieve success. Shedding light on his initial days at AKA, Daniel Cormier revealed how Khabib Nurmagomedov wandered around asking everyone about their technique to gain knowledge and implement it into his game. That’s definitely the stuff of a champion. So, to make sure his teammates follow at least some level of that hard work, Khabib has revealed that he shows no remorse during training.

“When we come to the gym, when we begin our training, all of them know about this, there is no freedom of speech,” Nurmagomedov said at the World Sports Summit. “There are some fighters, they take it very personal, competition. Like, when they lose competition, and right now in these days, you can see how guys, they lost the ball and they just stand. It’s like, c’mon brother, you cannot do this,” he added.

So, as we can understand from the undefeated Russian’s statement, he doesn’t take losses lightly. Moreover, we could see the same ‘no-nonsense’ approach when Khabib worked with Umar Nurmagomedov to get better after dropping the first fight of his career against Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 311. As a result, ‘the Young Eagle’ bounced back with two consecutive wins. 

That said, as we know, Khabib Nurmagomedov is a much stricter coach! Do you think discipline is the only reason his students are so successful? Let us know in the comments section below.