Rustam Babaiev looks great in the weight category of 95 kg, where he can demonstrate his power as much as possible. So that Rustam could successfully pull among the super heavyweights, he, of course, must gain weight. But it is not easy because of the anthropometric data of the athlete.

But was there any one specific reason that prevented Babaiev from qualitatively answering the challenge and overcoming Prudnik?

Rustam, what do you remember from Malaysia?

- I remember a warm welcome, pleasant atmosphere, excellent organization of the event, everything was great. Not without nuances, of course, but they all overlapped with positive moments. I really liked Asia, Asian athletes. I met many positive characters.

Tell about your condition in front of the armfight. How hard was your flight and adaptation? Do you think the problem was in the difficult process of adaptation?

- Adaptation this time was not as easy as ever for me. I think it was connected not only with the climate, but also with food, the food in Malaysia is quite specific. Most likely, I lost both muscle weight and water because of this. And the flight was difficult, we waited a long time for a transition, and as a result we flew almost 30 hours. I will try next time to consider all.

Did you lose confidence after the fight in the first round? What could you learn about Evgeny after the first round?

- No, after the first round I didn’t lose confidence. I had other calculations, I hoped that Evgeny would get tired quickly. But he was well prepared! Probably, I had miscalculations in the training plan. I will keep this in mind and make a certain correction. In the fight against superheavyweights, as it turned out, I need other accents.

It seemed you never managed to start first ...

- Yes, indeed, I could not start the first because of the referee’s specific attitudes, and in addition, after such an adaptation, I did not feel my hand well. We need to work on this in order to be 100% ready or even more next time.

If you could change the preparation for the fight, what would you change? What should the emphasis be on?

- I would remove a couple of exercises that seemed necessary to me, but in fact took my strength abilities from other movements. Need to adjust the angles to fight with long arms. And it is important that this is not a regular grid, but six fights, and I get tired faster.

Is everything okay with the hands after the fight?

- Yes, everything is in fine with hands. Apparently, I could not turn on and did not fight to the fullest, there was no tone in my hands. During the preparation, my cervical nerve was slightly jammed. Because of this, the biceps didn’t work on 100%. Now I am trying to solve this problem with specialists. I am sure that this will not happen again, and everyone will see a new level of my training.