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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Sport
Harry Davies

Khabib Nurmagomedov is coaching five-year-old son to follow in his footsteps

The five-year-old son of UFC legend Khabib Nurmagomedov already has over a year and a half of wrestling experience under his belt.

Nurmagomedov, 34, retired from fighting last March and has since launched his own MMA promotion, Eagle FC. 'The Eagle' has three children; one daughter and two sons, with the youngest being born just months after the penultimate win of his UFC career against Dustin Poirier in 2019.

In a recent interview after the latest Eagle FC event, Nurmagomedov revealed his son started out in wrestling even earlier than he did. "He started walking on the mat because we have a gym at home, my son is already training and doing gymnastics. He has a good coach that I trust, he already trains in Makhachkala. He started earlier than I did, at 3 and a half years old. I'll be his wrestling coach," Nurmagomedov said.

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Nurmagomedov was also questioned about how much time he is able to spend with his children given his duties as a fight promoter, to which he said: "I'm working on that. I always try to have my children fly with me, but when school starts I won't be able to do that. It's not something I have to show on Instagram or other mass media. There are things I share with my fans and then there are private family matters.

The retired fighter has previously stated that he wouldn't want his children to go follow in his footsteps as a UFC star, but would be open to them competing in Olympic sports such as wrestling. Nurmagomedov said many of the hardships he went through during his time in the UFC went under the radar, such as when he almost "died" during a bad weight cut in 2017.

Khabib Nurmagomedov retired from fighting last year (Alamy Live News.)

"Once when I came home, he fell asleep grabbing my belt," he said in a 2018 interview on Russian TV. "I suppose it's a good sign, even though he was less than a year old and I don't suppose he knows what he was doing. Honestly, I don't want him to go through all what I went through because in fighting most people don't see the inside.

"They only see a picture and video tapes, my walkout and my fight but they don't see the 25 years of work that I went through. How many surgeries I had on my knee, back, hand and ribs. How I almost died while cutting weight. I would like him to do Olympic kind of sport, not sambo but wrestling."

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