Daniel Cormier: Khabib spent insane $1 million in camp to help Islam Makhachev win at UFC280

UFC280 card delivered on the promise of a finish in the main event. Despite never having faced a top 10 opponent, Makhachev submitted Charles Oliveira in the 2nd round and was declared the winner by way of submission.

Oliveira was visibly shaken. During the event coverage AKA insider Daniel Cormier shared some interesting information. According to the longtime friend of both Nurmagomedov and Makhachev, Khabib spent as much as $1 million on Makhachev’s camp to prepare for UFC 280.

Despite his lengthy UFC tenure, Makhachev isn’t really wealthy. Ahead of UFC 280 he explained:

“Uh, honestly, this it’s going to be like my first fight where I can make, like, real money, you know, as are all the money I spent for my family. Like, I build some house for my family, and but now, right now, it’s big money’s coming.”

Mortal Kombat’s Brian Campbell shared the info from the broadcast on twitter.

Ahead of the event Khabib Nurmagomedov shared a good deal of information about how seriously they were taking it. Considering Nurmagomedov and Makhachev hail out of Dagestan the two are used to training at an altitude – which is why acclimating to the desert heat is very hard for the both of them.

Abu Dhabi is just 27m above sea level while the two hail from Sildi (Russian: Сильди; Avar: Силди) which is a rural locality (a selo) in the Tsumadinsky District in the Republic of Dagestan, Russia at an altitude of 2311m / 7582feet. To put things into perspective, everyone had a hard time on UFC 278 card which was held in Salt Lake City at an altitude of 1,288 m.

“Here it’s like, very, like, crazy with. You have to come if you want to fight. If you want to make weight, if you wanna recover, if you don’t feel jetlag, you have to be here 30 days all the time.”

“When, like, when we fight here in Abu Dhabi, we have four guys that come take a second October. We have to come here more than month because jetlag is crazy. You get to, like a lot of people underestimate this. A lot of people think when you have when like, for example, if you fight in Mexico City, like it’s like more than 3000 meter under the sea, you have to go there one month.”

“No – worst in desert was like because we for mountain we can we can fly to Mexico and fight like in the mountains. It’s easy, but because we’re from mountain. For us, it’s like very hard to deal with desert. Desert with it. And all the time I came here, we have, like, at least two weeks. ”

Makhachev dedicated the win to Khabib’s late father Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov.

The emotional champion said: “Abu Dhabi, thank you. I trained so hard for this moment. All my life I have prepared for this moment.

“I just want to say this belt is for my coach Abudulmanap Nurmagomedov. Many years ago he told me I’m going to be champion. I want to give this belt.”