- On
ACA 121 you will have a duel with Oleg Borisov.
In your opinion, will beating him give you another chance to fight for the title?
- I do not exclude that after this fight I may be assigned the status of the first contender for the belt.
Now I am in fifth place in the ACA bantamweight ranking, Oleg is in ninth place.
But all this is not so important, because I will not fight for the title while Magomed Bibulatov owns it.
We are friends, we train in the same gym.
- At one time,
ACA President
Alexei Yatsenko said that the league would fight this.
What will you do if the leadership requires you to fight Magomed?
- I will refuse anyway.
There are enough opponents in the league with whom I would be ready to enter the cage.
But I do not intend to compromise my principles and fight Bibulatov.
- What about a possible transition to a different weight. Let's say you get the status of the first contender for the title, and the management offers you to move up one or two categories higher?
- No, I'm not considering performing in the featherweight or lightweight divisions yet.
If I had decided to change the category, then most likely I would have moved to the lightest weight (up to 56.7 kg).
- In this case, how to deal with the weight-race, because you have a very solid height for this category, 175 cm?
- Yes you are right.
With this height, I am considered too tall for even the lightest weight, but at the moment I am comfortable fighting in it.
Maybe someday I will consider going higher, but at the moment it doesn't make sense.
In addition, in these divisions the belts are also owned by the Russians - Magomedrasul Khasbulayev and Abdul-Aziz Abdulvahabov.
- At the last
ACA show,
Bibulatov defeated Daniel de Almeida Jubileo, to whom you lost earlier.
How would you rate Magomed's performance in this fight?
- Bibulatov is a very technical and tactically clever fighter.
In my fights, I mainly focus on power, and he tries to act more subtly, calibrated, outplay his opponents.
We can say that he succeeded in that fight.
Magomed worked very well at a distance, maneuvered well, did not allow Joubileo to hit.
At such moments, Daniel starts to experience problems.
It is much more convenient for him when the counterpart stands directly opposite him and allows him to strike blows on his own.
As soon as the fight did not go according to plan, the Brazilian found himself in a difficult position.
- Everyone managed to admire Bibulatov's performance in that fight. But have you noticed any downsides to his work?
- I would not say that Magomed did anything wrong in that battle.
But we must understand that the injury left a serious imprint on the performance.
Two weeks before the fight, he injured his knee, so on the eve of the tournament he could not run, spar, and worked mainly on his paws.
- A couple of days ago Rustam Kerimov announced his return to the promotion. Would you be interested in fighting him?
- In case of victory over Borisov, I see three possible opponents for myself.
The first is Joubileo.
I lost to him last year and would really like to have a rematch with him.
The second is Rasul Mirzaev, but I would like to fight with him in featherweight.
In 2019, we already met in the bantamweight division, but it seems to me that he did not feel very comfortable there.
I think together we can deliver a spectacle worthy of the main event of the ACA tournament.
And the third is Kerimov, a very strong athlete.
I would love to meet him.
- Kerimov is a former champion of the
ACA, has not suffered a single defeat in his career.
Do you think the promotion will give him a chance to compete for the title right off the bat?
- It seems to me that for a start, the matchmakers will want to test him.
Yet he hasn't performed since December 2019.
But now the situation is such that there are not so many contenders for the bantamweight trophy.
Goubileo just gave up the belt and won't get a chance to get it back.
Abdul-Rakhman Dudayev trains in the same team with Bibulatov and will not fight with him.
The same goes for me.
Therefore, in the whole category there are only a few worthy contenders for the champion.
Taking this into account, I would not be surprised if Rustam is immediately organized a meeting with Magomed.
Still, both are very strong fighters, and their fight can attract the attention of fans.
- As far as we know, in your free time from training, you work as a security guard. Does it interfere with your career?
- No.
I work eight days a month, and in preparation for tournaments, I am allowed to focus on training.
In general, the company is very loyal to my career in mixed martial arts, so they help me in this field.
- What exactly are you guarding?
- A building in the center of Grozny.
Among other things, it houses the ACA offices, a fitness center.
- Have there been any cases at work when there was a risk of being seriously injured?
- No, until now, nothing like this has happened.
And it seems to me that in the future some kind of emergency will not happen either.
- Why don't you leave this job, because you are one of the top fighters in your division and you hardly earn little money?
- It's about the team.
I have already got used to the people with whom I communicate, they are attractive to me.
Therefore, I have no desire to leave this place.
If they decide to fire, then they have to come to terms with it.
But I'm not going to leave myself.
Probably former
UFC heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic is the most famous example of a fighter who continues to go to regular jobs despite a successful career in MMA.
What do you think motivates him?
- I think he is pleased to help others, to do good, to feel close to the people.
Firefighter work is very worthy.
They are among the first to arrive at the scene, to save people.
I don't think he will decide to give it up, even if he gets about a million dollars for the fight.
If I were in his place, I would have done the same.
- If
ACA offered you $ 1 million for a fight, would you still not leave your job as a security guard?
- Of course not.
- As far as you can tell from your
Instagram page
, you are into football.
More recently, they published a video of Cristiano Ronaldo's goal against Sampdoria after hitting his head.
Is the Portuguese your favorite footballer?
- No, I would not say that.
Undoubtedly, I follow Ronaldo, as well as many other famous footballers.
But as such, I don't have a favorite player.
As for the club, I have been rooting for Barcelona for a long time.
I try to take to the field regularly.
After all, it is not only a pleasure, but also a great cardio workout that helps to improve endurance.
We usually play the entire field for 90 minutes.
I play the role of a left midfielder, so about 60% of the time I have to run, constantly accelerate.
But all this is good, so I try to never miss football.
Even if they write to me at 2-3 o'clock in the morning, I still go.
- Have you had this hobby since childhood?
- Of course.
Even at an early age, they chased the ball with the guys.
There were no gates, so they put bricks instead of bars and played right on the track.
- Then there was no desire to go to the football section?
- Yes, as a child I was engaged in this.
But everything was not going very well there.
I quickly realized that there were no serious prospects.
- What was the matter?
- One of the reasons was the coach.
Many did not listen to him, and he himself was not eager to develop football players.
The main thing for him was to conduct a lesson, and the rest was secondary.
I didn’t see any opportunities to improve, and I didn’t want to waste time.
Therefore, he left.
- How did it happen that you changed football to MMA?
- Before starting training in mixed martial arts, I was engaged in taekwondo.
Then I started watching PRIDE and UFC shows.
I took out cassettes with records of tournaments.
At that time, he knew only one painful technique - a triangle, so he worked it out on his cousins.
And I began to purposefully engage in MMA only at the age of 17-18, when I ended up in the Berkut hall.
My friend Akhmad Salamov brought me there.
- You said that you are a fan of Barcelona, but at the same time spread posts with Cristiano. Which side are you on in the eternal dispute between Messi and Ronaldo?
- To be honest, I think Ronaldo is the best footballer, although Messi is also very good.
But Cristiano is completely devoted to his work, extremely motivated.
Many people think that if a person is a fan of Barcelona, they do it solely because of Lionel.
But in my case it is not so.
Even if the Argentine leaves, I will still support the Catalan club.
- Messi is often called a kind of alien footballer, whose success predetermined talent, and Ronaldo is a hard worker. Does this indicate that you value diligence to some extent more and associate yourself with Cristiano?
- Yes, absolutely.
Ronaldo is a self-made man.
This makes us admire the Portuguese once again.
- Who would you include in the top 5 best footballers in history?
- Ronaldo and Messi would definitely be on this list.
I would also include Zinedine Zidane, Mohammed Salah, and Killian Mbappe.
A young but very talented footballer.
In general, there were more than enough outstanding players.
Of course, this is Pele, the Brazilian Ronaldo, Diego Maradona - you can name it for a long time.
The same Zlatan Ibrahimovich.
It is incomprehensible to the mind what he gets up to on the field.
He waves his legs as if performing in a karate competition.
- Ibrahimovic was just doing taekwondo, just like you. You could have scored such goals yourself now.
- Sometimes I really manage to score beautifully.
There were goals with scissors, and even from the middle of the field I managed to excel - in the fifth or sixth grade it turned out like that.
But in my opinion, free kicks look best.
Recently I just had one.
I liked it so much that I posted the video on Instagram.
View this post on Instagram
Publication from "RIGAHO" (@shamil_shakhbulatov)
- Now there is a lot of talk about the fact that Khabib Nurmagomedov would not mind trying his hand at football. Have you crossed paths with him on the field?
- No.
Of course, we know him, but we didn't have to play together.
- Nurmagomedov himself admitted that he would very much like to play for Spartak. Do you think this is possible?
- In my opinion, Khabib could easily play at the RPL level.
It might take a little practice, but I don't think he would have a problem.
To be honest, the level of the Russian championship is quite low.
- Over the past two seasons, domestic clubs have been extremely unsuccessful in European competitions. What do you think is the reason?
- I think that Russian footballers have no motivation.
They make good money, what else do you need?
When you watch RPL matches, it seems that most of the players are just serving their number.
The team loses 0: 1 and does not even try to recoup - rolls the ball in their own half of the field.
At the same time, in the opponent's zone, a lone attacker is waiting for a horse pass.
So the score cannot be equalized.
Don't get me wrong, I love watching football and I do it regularly.
Let's say that the same submarine brings real pleasure.
- On
Instagram, I also saw you have a video from the game
Pro
Evolution
Soccer.
As far as I understand, you are also fond of football simulators?
- Yes, but I really liked playing PES even on old consoles - PS One.
But over the years this hobby has not passed.
Once every few days we meet with a friend, take sweets, chips, juice and sit down to play football.
Whoever wins ten matches wins.
- Bibulatov said that he himself loves the
Pro Evolution Soccer
series . Have you
played with him?
- Not yet.
In fact, you have to invite him home somehow and "punish" him in PES (laughs).
Magomed himself is very fond of football, is a fan of PSG.
- Since you do not want to fight with Bibulatov in a cage, perhaps you will agree to play a series of matches with him in
Pro
Evolution
Soccer?
- With joy.
It would be very interesting for me to play with him.
If I gave in, it would be very disappointing.
When I lose, I get very nervous.
Sometimes you want to throw the joystick, hit the TV.
But instead, I get up, give the gamepad to a friend, and leave the room.