What Will Harris Learned Staying with Khabib in Dagestan | Joe Rogan

And that's the thing, MMA fans are fickle, right? They like who they like, they don't like they like. It's only about three or four fighters that can get a lot of views on YouTube. It's that way with everything. That's what I'm saying. So it's comedy, so it was... Yeah, and people are fascinated. Like, I'm lucky enough to know a Khabib, right? Or somebody like that. Like, I didn't know who this guy was until Rashad Evans was like, yo, let me introduce you to my guy Ali. And then I met Ali filming some Henzo Gracie stuff for him. And he was like, yo, I like you, man. Let me put you together when my fighter... You know who Khabib is? I was like, is that the guy that fought Michael Johnson? I didn't know who Khabib was. He was like, I think y'all would be a good fit. Because the way you do stories and stuff like that, I think he'll like you and you'll like him. And I literally met him of January of last year of 2018 in Boston. And when Francis was fighting Stipe and Vulcan was fighting DC, and that was the first time I ever met Khabib. And the rest is history. I filmed him up there. He was finna fight Tony. Then I filmed him doing the whole Connor fiasco, a la Quinta. Then I went to Dagestan. I went to Dagestan. What's that like? Intense. But it was beautiful. Because people tried to scare me when I was supposed to go to Dagestan. Who? Like, I got people in the UFC that was like, yo, be careful over there. I'm thinking like... People that work for the UFC? Yeah, just stand. Be careful. And I'm thinking to myself, like, in my DMs on Instagram, like, bro, just be careful. They don't fucking play over there. I was going to... I went doing Ramadan last June at the end of Ramadan. And did you have to observe while you were there? So Khabib wanted me to come during the last tail end of Ramadan. Right? So I went over there, by myself, went and got my visa in Miami, and went over there. Just got my ticket. And I went over there. I remember the first day I got there, I was in, like, customs for like two hours, because they couldn't speak English at this little airport in Dagestan. And Khabib was outside, and he wasn't coming to the airport because he too famous, right? And this is in the middle of the night. And I remember when I first got there, it was just checkpoint, everywhere, when I got there. Like, we like, drive down the street, person with some guns. I'm like, all right, cool. I don't know where we at, but this is Dagestan. And I ended up getting to this, I stayed at his uncle house, I think. And from there, it was just a beautiful moment. The Dagestan Chronicles is my most popular thing on my channel, obviously, because it's showing Khabib in a way no one's ever seen him. I observed Ramadan the whole time I was there. I didn't eat. I didn't drink. I did exactly what Khabib and them did, because I think a problem with us a lot as Americans is we take our culture somewhere else. And I wanted to observe their culture and really see what it was like. And I was fascinated. I wanted to know why women covered themselves. I asked all those questions. All of that stuff is in the documentary. And now, I get all these millions of people watching these videos, the most common thing is, where is the women at? And I'm like, why are these people so obsessed with where the women at? And I literally went into that. Like, I asked, like, when these women are married, you don't point a camera at these people. Like, I've seen women. You just don't point a camera at them. It's rude, right? And that's like their culture. And their culture. Did they explain this to you? Yeah, they did. And they did. What did they say? They literally just said they look at their like, I talked to a couple of them, a couple of people over there. And it was just like, we look at our women as women as queens. And we cover them because in the in the Quran is, you know, the man is weak to the flesh. So they don't want their woman to be, you know, looked at by other men. Yeah, that's the word I was looking for. So you just cover themselves up. And in our culture, that's, you know, that may be weird, but I respect it like what they told me it made sense. It literally made sense where it was just like, listen, we don't let another man look at our wife, right? I'm not going to bash on that culture because I feel like that's silly. A woman can do whatever they want to do. That's just how they feel like I don't, you know, so, but I seen women. I seen some beautiful women too, I was in Dagestan. So it wasn't the fact that I didn't film any women. I seen women. But they explained to you when you go here, you cannot film the women. No, no, no, it was just, yeah, in a way, like just don't film another man's woman. Like, I think I talked to Chris Wyman once when I was at his gym, when I was doing a la Quinta, he went to Cheshney. Yeah. And he told me a story. I think him and Vordouin went to Cheshney and he was telling me a story of like, he accidentally touched a woman's hand and they like literally got on like, you don't touch another woman. You don't touch a woman's hand over here. Because that's bad on her, right? Right. And I was like, damn, that's crazy. You can't even, because he said he was just like reaching out, shaking people's hands. And then he, you know, human instinct, you reach and grab somebody's hand. And he just said, man, that's a different culture over there. A woman can't touch another man's hand. So yeah, that guy from Cheshney, the leader of Cheshney, he's like really into MMA, right? He flies a bunch of people out. Yeah. You know, what's crazy is that I don't know anything about the guy or his politics or anything, but I know that he obsessed with fighting, right? I know Tarong Spong been over there and Y-Men and all these guys. I just met Nick Dutouf the other day. And they went over there to Cheshney, him and the Mendez brothers. Did they teach you jiu-jitsu? Yeah, they had, I think the Mendez brothers had like a... Seminar or something? Seminar. I did like a preview of Chito Verra and he was talking about it in there. Like they did a jiu-jitsu match in front of some Olegark over there. Like it's crazy, right? Like they flew him over there for that. Yeah. Well, he's got a lot of money. Yeah. Hey, I'm not even fighting any sponsors. Didn't he give Khabib like some crazy Mercedes when he won? I think I saw that on Instagram. He got like a gift. I think he gave him some crazy S-Class. Khabib getting that Dubai money now though. He always in Dubai. I mean, since his fight, he been in Dubai how many times? What's he doing over there? Speaking, things like that. I mean, when you wanted the most famous, I think he's like top 15 and the most famous athletes now. Well, for sure. And definitely the most famous Muslim athlete. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean... The only UFC champion that's undefeated other than John Jones, who should be undefeated if it not for that one fucked up disqualification. After spending time with Khabib in Dagestan, like me and his father going into the mountains and things like that, I just don't see nobody beating him. I'm sorry what you throw at him. You're not... What way? I just feel like just his pedigree of where he from. It's nothing that's going to break that guy. It's not... You can't... What are you going to do? I just don't think it's nothing you can do after going to Dagestan and seeing how those people live and how their code and their values of how they live. In what way? What was so convincing? Well, just how strict the faith is over there, right? And they tie in everything they do to their faith. It's sort of like how Ali was. Like, I'm not going to lose because of Allah and things like that. And I truly believe after seeing like just the camaraderie over there, the gyms they train in, the mountains, everything that makes this guy... It's nothing in an octagon that someone is going to do. Like, there's going to be Khabib. Like, everything can happen. A fluke can happen. We see it all the time. But I just feel like mentally, there's nothing that's going to break Khabib. Like, I feel like if he was ever in a situation where he had to tap, he wouldn't. Like, he would just have to put him to sleep because I just don't think that's possible. Like, to beat him. I honestly feel like Khabib can't lose. I just don't see nobody beating him. I just... I've been in locker rooms with fighters and you got a butterfly filling and things like that. Like, when he fought Connor and I was in a locker room, Khabib was FaceTiming his people and Dagestan laughing and Javier Mendez just like, let's get focused. Let's get focused. Let's get focused. Khabib is not caring. Wow. Khabib just ready to go, right? When Tony Ferguson was fighting Pettus, he like hit and mix with Javier and Khabib just looking up to the screen. Javier was like, let's get focused. Let's get focused. Khabib don't care, man. It's a different level. He always said that's like his favorite thing. This is a different level. That's what I love about him, man. It's like, people are obsessed with the fighter. I like Khabib as a person. And that's the thing that I get out of this anatomy of a fighter. It's like, just hanging out with this guy. But like, if you ever watched my series, I never really talk about a guy's fight coming up. Like, if you ever watch anatomy fighters, it's not about your opponent. It's just about your life. Because I felt like when I created it, I felt like these organizations wasn't promoting fighters all the way. And yeah, they're going to promote the top fighters and things like that. But what about the guys that are two and one in the UFC, not ranked like they in the UFC, like they may get cut after a couple of fights. Like what do they have left after that? And I was just like, let me create this series instead of a documentary and just continue to build this and follow these guys' lives. And that's all I really wanted to do. It was no hidden incentive where I was like, I'm gonna make millions of dollars off this. I'm gonna end up on a Joe Rogan podcast. It was like, I love following these fighters and telling their stories because it's sort of like similar to my journey. You know, these guys are, what was the guy that just fought Daron Nguyen in Greenville? Eric Spicy or Spicely or whatever his name was. He tweeted like, oh, I had, he just got, they got fighter tonight. He was like, I had minus 270 in my bank account. I've been there Joe. So that's why I get the passion out of doing it. Because I've been there with these fighters. At this point in my life, I've paid for fighters' fights in hotels because they couldn't get a hotel. Like these fighters know that, some of these fighters know that to where I'm able to help them. I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm funding this all on my own. Breaking myself. So to me, I'm just thinking on myself, like, you doing this for a specific reason. You're passionate about it and you want to tell these guys' lives. And I just really wanted to offer another glimpse into fighter's lives other than Fight Week. If you flew to Phoenix for three days to do comedy and get a hotel and you know how expensive flight and like, so imagine me funding this on my own if I want to go somewhere for three days. I was like a big people over there. So I was like a little celebrity over there. And you're a big one too. And they know I'm from, I'm with Khabib, so I was cool with that. Oh, so they knew that. Yeah. So I'm friendly with you? Yeah, they was chilling. Did they speak English? A couple people did. A couple people did. Did they ask you questions? Yeah, they asked me questions. They, you know, they, they obviously, I had already been with Khabib at that time. You know, I was, that was past the Conor McGregor fiasco. So you know, my channel get popular because it's something like that. They just watch anything Khabib related. Khabib got some crazy fans. And how many people live in Dagestown? Man, I don't know. Jamie, pull that up. Do you always want to say that? I saw some of the videos of people celebrating when he won. It was fucking crazy, man. The streets are honking their horns. When he won the title or when he beat Conor? When he beat Conor. Yeah, that was crazy. 2.9 million. Yeah. Okay. Cool. So it's, you're, you're, it's a city, but it's essentially like, that's something in the mountains. Yeah, it's big. The mountains are like right next to it or something? Yeah. Like sort of like Denver? Well, when we went to his mountain village, we had to drive like two hours and get there. Oh, really? Yeah. Like we had to go on the board as a Chechnya. I had to get another visa. Oh, wow. Like just to get through that checkpoint. I'll never forget. Like we got to the checkpoint and they like, we had to all give them our stuff. And then Khabib, Khabib was like, get out. And the dude was like, get out. The army guy with his gun. And then I get out and I come around the car and Khabib is like, get your camera brother. Right? And then he was like, they want to take a picture with you with the camera. I was like, oh, thank God. What the hell y'all about to do? Yeah, I called like a bad case of diarrhea while I was over there because I eaten up but meat, I was trying to do keto while I was over there. And listen, the toilets are just a hole in the ground. Do you have the squat? Yeah, you got the squat and pull the string or whatever. Oh, Jesus. So I remember like we was driving from his village at that was like my last night there. And I was always destroyed. I was like, and we got two hours. Oh, no. We like stopped a couple of times to eat and pray and all that stuff. Like, you know, and I remember like I was suffering and Khabib like filming me with his phone laughing. Look at his brother. Look at his brother. He's about to shit himself. And I remember getting back to the place where I was standing. Dagestan. Oh, my God. I probably lost like eight pounds. It was crazy. It was a crazy experience, man. It was a crazy experience in Dagestan. That's life changing. It changed my life. How long were you there for? Nine days. Wow. It changed my life. Really? Yeah, because when you in this type of industry, everybody materialistic, we all want nice things. We want to live in nice places. We want to drive nice cars. I do. Most people do want to live nice and comfortable. And I saw just how happy these people was just living their lives. Like I went to his village. I went to his mountain village and I was in the city and I saw these people were just happy and maybe on on the outside, they was happy and maybe they was dealing with other things that we don't know about. But I saw family, this brotherhood and I had a little bit of respect for their culture. Obviously, with Islam and things like that, it's so many different sects that makes it bad. Just like with Christianity and people in the Catholic community and the priest and everything. And that's my experience with the Islamic community, being around Khabib. So that's the only thing that I can go off of. And obviously, everybody's seen Muhammad Ali and he praises and things like that. But I had a newfound respect for just the simpleness of that. Like Khabib, I thought honestly Khabib was going to retire after he fought Conor because I talked to him a little bit about that. And because he don't want much. What did he say after the Conor fight? No, no, before the Conor fight. Before? Yeah. He was just like, what do you think about me retiring after the Conor fight? I was like, man, you do what you want to do. I can't tell you. He was like, I mean, I'm going to have money. What else do I need to do? Right. Because he obviously knew that was going to be the biggest, the biggest fight ever. So how much did you make for that fight? I don't know. Well, remember they took his check, right? But obviously he got a lot of money for that. Yeah, they gave him a small. I think Conor had four million dollar check and then Khabib had a two million dollar check. And then obviously they had the pay-per-view points. Right. So I was like, Dan, where my money at? I promoted the thing. You should have definitely gotten paid for that video. Listen, you know what's funny is that somebody asked me a loan. It was like, if you got anything out of this whole thing, what would you want? I'd be like a camera. Let's get a new camera so I can shoot some movies or something. Right. That's literally the low expectations I had out of making the series. Right. Especially when it was a documentary. I was just like, man, maybe I make this documentary, put it on Netflix or Amazon for free about fighters and now looking back on it, the stuff that I have captured on them hard drives, I can sell a documentary for millions of dollars. I think I got amazing footage. I got the whole Connor thing. I got that tape is like 20 minutes. Nobody's ever seen it. I have it. No one's really seen the whole thing. Like I got Connor when he first ran down the tunnel, like, because I seen him from a distance.