‘It was the WORST camp’: Khabib coach confesses UFC champion was HOSPITALIZED with MUMPS earlier than lacking coaching with a BROKEN TOE

Khabib Nurmagomedov began his coaching camp in hospital with mumps and broke his toe in his second sparring session forward of his title win over Justin Gaethje, coach Javier Mendez has admitted in an astonishing new interview.

Lengthy-serving Mendez had a fair higher duty than traditional within the absence of Nurmagomedov’s late father, Abdulmanap, for the primary time because the Russian confronted Gaethje at UFC 254 following 13 months away from the Octagon.

In a nightmare build-up to the assembly that will seal Nurmagomedov’s legacy, the light-weight nice initially fell sick earlier than showing as a visitor of honor on the inaugural MMA event held to honour his father in Moscow on September 9.

“He bought the mumps, I assume, the day earlier than his father’s occasion in Russia,” Mendez advised Submission Radio. “So he got here [to camp] with the mumps and he tried coaching a few days, actually mild.

“However then he bought so sick he needed to be hospitalized. He was within the hospital for 3 days. He comes out, and I’m like going, ‘I’m actually sh*tting, man.

“I’m going, ‘oh man, we’re preventing such an amazing warrior like Justin and we’re already beginning off on a foul foot…this actually sucks.”

That alternative of phrases would additionally precisely describe the drawback the 32-year-old suffered shortly after he started sharpening his abilities towards coaching companions.

Having had a single week of coaching after two weeks out with the an infection, Mendez hoped to start seeing important enhancements when his fighter endured an agonizing toe break.

“We needed to get some sparring in as a result of with out sparring you don’t know the place you’re at,” he defined. “We now have one sparring session.

“He appeared OK. Not how I wished him to look, however he appeared OK. And the second sparring session he was wanting nice, and unexpectedly, halfway within the second spherical, increase, he stops.

“I’m going, ‘what the heck occurred?’ Broke his freaking toe. Now we’ve got to attend extra time for him to heal earlier than we are able to begin coaching once more. So that basically jacked every part up.”

Some followers had speculated that Nurmagomedov appeared relieved when he weighed in on Friday, though there had been little inkling that the Dagestani icon had confronted a succession of setbacks that will have proved catastrophic for a lot of fighters.

Mendez believes that Nurmagomedov’s exceptional psychological energy allowed him to supply a blinding efficiency to finish his 30-fight UFC profession unbeaten after retiring throughout post-fight scenes that had been simply as memorable as his second-round victory.

“Six days out earlier than the occasion, he mentioned, ‘coach, my toe could also be damaged, however my thoughts isn’t,'” recalled confidante Mendez.

“We labored on stuff like that endlessly from his father. To me, when he mentioned that my thoughts isn’t [broken], we knew that we had been profitable this battle, it doesn’t matter what.

“We had the worst luck ever for this camp. It was unimaginable how unhealthy it was.

“Each camp has issues and we had our share on this one. However he was prepared, mentally and bodily, to go.”

Closing sparring classes with Usman Nurmagomedov, Khabib’s rising light-weight cousin who Mendez described as “a phenom”, additionally impressed confidence of the crushing comeback win that will arrive on Combat Island.

“In these final sparring classes, he appeared unbelievable,” mentioned Mendez.

“The final sparring session…he appeared so unimaginable. I mentioned, ‘oh, we’re good, we’re good.

“If issues didn’t go my means, you wouldn’t hear me speaking about this – as a result of then we’re crying bitter grapes and I didn’t need to do this.

“However [because] he did win, I’m simply stating the information. It was the worst camp for us with reference to accidents and stuff.”

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