Ryan Harkness breaks down daily mixed martial arts (MMA) news, providing unique context to stories that only 15 years of obsessing over the sport can provide, having worked for FOX Sports, Yahoo! Sports, UPROXX, MSN, Bleacher Report, HDNet and CagePotato, among others, before joining MMAmania.com in 2017.
Khabib Nurmagomedov's new training facility in his hometown of Sildi is officially open for business.
In 2024, Nurmagomedov closed the Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov MMA School in Makhachkala, the capitol of Dagestan with over 620,000 people. Now he has reopened it in Sildi, which is a slightly smaller town of roughly 500 people.
"Flew to America, took part in the biggest confrontation in the history of martial arts," Khabib said in an Instagram Story on the new facility. "Beat up someone who I didn't like and they even paid me for it. Upon arrival home, I invested it in this beautiful corner of Dagestan. This training base has an interesting history."
"I would like to add one more thing, I will not recoup these investments in my life, and I do not have a goal to do so. My goal was different."
Sildi is a five hour drive from Makhachkala and sits above 6000 feet in altitude. So if all the Russian wrestlers training out of Dagestan suddenly up their cardio game, you'll know why.
While the new facility is recently completed, it has already been in use for a while. Islam Makhachev used it for his most recent training camp to prepare for Arman Tsarukyan. Tsarukyan would pull out of their UFC 311 fight in January, leaving Islam to submit Renato Moicano in four minutes flat.
The training camp is remote and beautiful, but if you go you better be prepared to work hard with no days off. It's the Abdulmanap way and Khabib follows his father's strict protocols. That will probably be necessary as the world finally figures out Dagestani wrestling. While Team Khabib's record remains impressive, Umar Nurmagomedov recently lost to Merab Dvalishvili and Usman Nurmagomedov was nearly defeated by Paul Hughes.
Regular Team Khabib training partner Belal Muhammad also just dropped his belt to Jack Della Maddalena, who had BJJ wiz Craig Jones in his corner to show him the way out of Dagestani handcuffs. It all points to a world where other camps are catching up.
Could the Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov MMA School in Sildi be the not-so-secret weapon that keeps Team Khabib ahead?