UFC Fighter Giga Chikadze on Discipline, Fighting Mindset & Never Giving Up | Coffeez for Closers

0:00Today we are on site at a brand new facility in Newport Beach called Giga Kick and we are sitting down with the founder of Giga Kick, Giga Chikadze and he is known as one of the world's foremost expert strikers, a UFC legend, a multi-world champion kickboxer and karate specialist. This guy is an absolute ninja and one of the most humble people you will ever meet. Please welcome the one, the only, Giga Chikaze. Welcome to another episode of Coffees. Thanks for having me. Giga, it's a pleasure. It's an honor to hang out with you. You're such a special human being, a very, very humble guy. I'm very impressed with your new dojo.

0:49It's beautiful, and you're attracting some of the world's best talent. Now, I like to open up every single episode the same way I ask everybody, what's your morning routine? Morning routine is waking up, jumping in the shower, obviously. Then making the coffee, preparing the breakfast, which most of the time is very limited. And preparing my bag and heading towards the gym. That's pretty, that's when I'm in a camp, it also depends on timing. Sometime I'm mixing up with my kid to drop one of them at school, depends time. And yeah, always heading towards the gym. Yeah, you don't need a crazy morning routine when your whole life is training.

1:44Yeah. Yeah. I skipped the supplement as well because when I'm doing the supplements, it's not just one or two. It's pretty much like a couple of glass, full glass of different type of vitamins, different pills. I mean, I'm sure your supplement stack is pretty intense. Oh, yeah. You've got to be on time and do multiple times per day. Most of the time when I'm in a camp, I really follow that plan. If I'm not in a camp, because I live in a camp, you know, that's something that I've been doing since I was a little kid, four or five years old, and always had the tournaments and competition, and I was preparing for some tournaments or fights.

2:38Since you're four years old? Since I was four or five years old. I started playing in the karate dojo, and that's how I started. Yeah, I mean like I was just talking to your doctor here. He was like, yeah, did you see what Georgian kids look like as kids? They're all ripped every single kid. I'm like, yeah, you know, that's what RFK is trying to do to America now, you know, trying to bring America back to how we looked in the 60s, you know, in the JFK era. It's like you guys are already there in the Georgian era now. It's like all the kids are competitive. They're athletes and and we see it now in UFC.

3:14There's multiple fighters coming out of Georgia. Yeah, Georgia is doing so good in UFC and it was just a matter of time. And I'm glad I had to do my part to help that little flow to come up. Here we are. We got two champions right now at the moment one. But yeah, we're only like three million people. and it's insane how much of the mixed martial arts is loved inside the country and how all the new generation are involved in martial arts. It's amazing. And I think you've been a big contributor to that. Put him on the map as the first official. I think I did a little part. God bless you for that.

4:11Let's jump into it now. You've been in martial arts now for 30 years. That's crazy. I mean, over 30 years. Yeah, true. Now, who were you before the UFC? What was life like before the spotlight, before the center stage, before the notoriety and the fame and all the following, et cetera? So I signed with the UFC 2019. 2018, I had the Contender Series chance to get to UFC. So I already had some relationship with them. And till then, that was like 2018, 2019. And I came here first time in 2014 just to check it out. And 2015 I moved here. So I spent like three years working really, really hard, really tough to get to the UFC.

5:12and while I was in these years I was fighting the kickboxing the biggest stage called show called Glory I was headlining the shows in Madison Square Garden in Staples Center in multiple different areas the different states in the biggest kickboxing show then I was invested all the money into my grappling wrestling to get smaller steps to make it to the UFC. Because all that was very necessary to get to the UFC. In the UFC even you are the, I was like ranked number one featherweight kickboxer when I left that show called Glory. And the UFC won't sign you straight if you don't have some experience of MMA.

6:10Even kickboxing and MMA so close to each other is like all different sport and you have to be ready for that. You have to have a couple of fights on the record. And it's funny that I was fighting one day on that show, like the biggest show in kickboxing. And three, four days after I would come and do some local show. You're a nobody in MMA. In MMA. and yeah in MMA they all knew me all the fighters yeah public wise you know the people they didn't know so I had to prove it that I was ready for UFC and there was the same time I had to do like competition in jujitsu and start with white belt the blue belt purple belt and travel around the tour you black belt jujitsu too or just no I stopped when I got to purple I never trained with Ghee after, which was seven years ago or six, yeah, seven.

7:07The requirement now in UFC is Jiu Jitsu, right? You have to have some Jiu Jitsu experience. You gotta know Jiu Jitsu and you gotta know the kickboxing as well and wrestling. It's not the one thing only. You can't do just one thing. Yeah, I had the CEO of LFA on my show a couple weeks ago, about a week ago, and he said that And Hoyce Gracie came in and proved that jiu-jitsu is the superior martial art. And he was one little tiny guy, your weight, right, 150 pounds going up against 300-pound fighters. And since he proved that, now look at UFC. They're requiring every fighter to know jiu-jitsu, to compete.

7:50So it's become such a difficult sport now because everybody knows jiu-jitsu. So to be a champion, like you really got to put in an extreme amount of effort in every martial art. Yeah, that's how the sport evolved. You know, this is only like, what, 35 years, 30 years old sports. And it's only going to grow more and more and more. And we just started. I'm super excited to see in the future. Back in the days, there was karate versus wrestling, kickboxing versus boxing, or jiu-jitsu versus sambo. So there was all different types of martial arts going against each other. But nowadays, you can go into one gym, and you can bring your kid inside and have wrestling and grappling and kickboxing and karate and all that together.

8:49They're going to grow somewhat like... Well, those kind of gyms don't exist. and then we talked about this when we met the concept of Giga Kick. What was the inspiration for starting Giga Kick? When I train and when I have a camp, when I really want to train with one of the best striking gym, one of the best wrestling. So if some big fights coming up, I want to get all the experience until my fight. And it's like almost impossible. it was impossible before to get someone who is one of the best grappler, one of the best striker, one of the best wrestler, all together in the same gym. Because all that, they all have little egos that, oh, I'm the best wrestler, I want to be separated with everyone, I want my thing to have.

9:44Then you have grappling that I'm the best grappler and I do traditional this way and that's the only way I'm going to do it. In my case, I was driving around in one gym in LA for boxing almost two hours, just one way and come back. doing 45 minutes to Anaheim and come back. So 45 minutes back and then to different areas in Urvain and in other areas and then after all that me driving and spending the 6 hours of driving per day just to get to the gym I was like you know what I think it's the right time to do something for community put nice dojo here bring my old experience, help the fighters to become the better strikers, better fighters and to the community to build up the traditional martial arts as karate, jiu-jitsu and bring mixed martial arts more easier for community and kind of like to build something special So because you come in this place and you have everything the best.

11:07Best karate, best kickboxing, best grappling, best wrestling. Finally, you meet somebody, the young kid who is acknowledged of the full mixed martial arts in one place. I think it's a good concept what we do. I love the concept because, you know, finding a boxing gym, you got to go to a boxing gym, you got to go to a jiu-jitsu gym. and we discuss I got kids and I want them to learn to strike but then it's like I got to take them to a striking gym and we belong to a jiu-jitsu gym and having daughters they got to learn to strike before they got to learn jiu-jitsu and jiu-jitsu is a long process striking if they come to a couple striking classes we know that they can defend themselves just a couple classes they don't have to train years they don't have to train arm bars you know um so for me just finding something where as if even as a parent that i could rest assured that my kids can properly defend themselves quickly is awesome but then to learn all of the arts in an intense environment like this where you have some of the best fighters in the world training here we just witnessed it and the viewers will see it on camera here it's like you're already attracting the most elite talent here already.

12:24The gym just opened. Right. And the best fighters are already coming here. How in the world did you attract the best fighters on the planet that quick? You know, the gym name is Giga. There is a reason why they call it Giga. So when I was a young kid, started training with karate. And then I developed the skill that I could transition my direction of the kick from the different areas while I was aiming high kick to switch to body kick or body kick to high kick. And that was really successful. Then I moved to kickboxing and I moved in Netherlands, traveling around the world, fought in Thailand and multiple different countries.

13:15I used my kick. Once I got a lot of success in kickboxing, people started to call this kick, Giga's kick. So time to time some people just skipped S and it became a Giga Kick. So after that, there's not only one kick I do. I do multiple different kicks and some people think that that's a Giga Kick. Some people think the other one is a Giga Kick. So, in mixed martial arts today people know me as one of the best kicker in the game. And I have something that not many people have it. Maybe only a couple of. and all that experience what I have in the kicking and striking game and transitioning karate to kickboxing, kickboxing to mixed martial arts, finding the right stances, right kicks, right techniques for the striking.

14:21I think that's something that attracts one of the best fighters to come and train with me and take something from here, you know. because what I find for mixed martial arts, it's not came just like that. For all you just mentioned, over 30 years of experience, I was concentrating and practicing all different striking sports. I've been practicing a lot of high level boxing trainings as well, kickboxing, Dutch style kickboxing in Thailand, Muay Thai, karate in different styles. There is Kyokushin, there is Gojurus, there is Shitoru, there is Shotokan, all that different type of karate. So that kind of gave me the ability to help other fighters, find for them the real and right techniques, plan their strategy for the fights, and not only in MMA, obviously in kickboxing and Muay Thai fights as well.

15:38I think that's a smart thing to come here and hang out with us and train. I think that's why they figured it out by themselves, you know, because we just opened. It's been only like 15 days. Fifteen days, and there was like five UFC fighters here, champions here. Fifteen days. And they're coming. I heard them talking, and they're driving like an hour, two hours. Many of them, yeah. And how many hours was the training session? It was two hours. They come for two hours, and they train. And they're going to train again, because these people are training in the middle of the day. So they're all professional fighters.

16:15Yeah, a lot of most of them they have a fight coming up like yeah, okay one kid has in two weeks the title fight coming up another Yeah, 15 days three weeks UFC fight four weeks use lights all pack It's amazing. I mean, I just come here and I see all these shredded dudes just like fighting in the middle of the day It's like they're all fighting coming up. I've never seen that. I've never saw professional fighters in their element in their training camps here. And they're just, you know, and I'm like, it's 12 o 'clock, you know, these guys are all pros. It's not like it's a, it's a few way they work out in the morning, they're not here for a workout.

16:59They had their workout. They're going to go now, take a little nap, and in one more hour, they're going to do the same thing in a different place for conditioning or something like that. It's unbelievable. It's so cool. At 15 days, now you're attracting... I mean, what is it going to be like here? Because you're in a prime location. This is the first time I've ever seen... This is like a fight camp area, and it's in the most famous part of Newport Beach, right on Newport Boulevard, so you're getting a million views. Probably more than a million views a day. You're going to get... Every probably 10 seconds, there's some UFC fighter being turned on to this place.

17:40I foresee this place as being like a hub for the world elite athletes coming because there is nothing like this and we're in the most prime real estate on the planet. It's going to be fun that we're professional high-level fighters and serious kids can get together in the same meds, get the same energy, get the experience for kids from professional stars that are around on TV and for all of that professional fighters, it will be more like unique place because in the backyard we're building the ice bath sauna, some private area for the gym as well So say there is a, someone has a special camp and we don't want nobody to see the training, that will be in that room.

18:41So you can have like the world famous, like number one champion in the back. Nobody knows he's here. We're probably going to direct him here as well because all the kids are going to have fun to share that little energy. It's always good to see someone who's role model. But yeah, it will be something really special there in the behind. I love the idea that you've made it like with a focus on the children, you know, like because you got the pros coming in the afternoons, training in the middle of the day, the world elites, and then you got kids in the evenings. You know my challenge, what's my challenge in reality?

19:26You know how lately, last 25 years around karate has a bad reputation around that you see the very young age kids with a black belt and most of them they don't know how to use it and let's say some incident happens and they cannot defend themselves. You watch karate tournament and it's all about belt or not all of them but most of them, you know. So I'm trying to bring real traditional karate back again. So my challenge is to get that Japanese traditional martial arts back to popularity and teach them the real karate in general. This is what I want to bring. Because you see there's so many Jiu Jitsu gyms around here and so popular become, right?

20:29and imagine that we bring the karate back again in the same same popularity with the right instructors right senseis then this kids gonna be unstoppable I was talking with a dad actually who's at our jiu-jitsu gym that you know jiu-jitsu now is the karate of like the 90s yeah you know where there was a karate gym on every corner. Yeah, in my country back then it was even illegal to train karate. It was illegal? My parents and their brothers and cousins, they would train karate into the separate, like the closed area and garages and stuff like that. The giga kick, it's an up down kick, right? Yeah, it could be down up kick.

21:20Can we get a demo of what it looks like? Sure. It's like going into the body, and then you do the high kick, or high to the body. Was there a moment in your career where you had to rebuild mentally, not just physically, to keep going? You really had to just get through that barrier mentally? Because this is a very taxing sport. Yeah, multiple times. You know, like the first thing, I got married when I was 18. I was a world champion in karate and I'm like, hell, what am I going to do? I don't want to be just a... Back then I wanted to be a fighter and karate would not pay any salary back then. So I had to figure out what to do.

22:07So I moved in Holland, I moved to the Netherlands to join the kickboxing team and learn kickboxing. because back then there was a league called K1, and K1 would pay some money. So that fight, there was always like, I mean, it was mentally tough, because I had a new wife. She was pregnant very soon as well, and we had a baby on the way. We moved in a city called Breda first, and then later in Amsterdam. All that things, like, fights were like only 200 euros they would pay. So I had to fight Friday, I would fight Saturday and Sunday to survive every other weekend, you know. Wow. I would fight in Belgium, in Germany, and in Holland and travel around in close by countries.

23:08So after time to time, I made my name there.

23:37slash careers to learn more and apply. And everything changed. And, yeah, there was many ups and downs with that. Besides that, my mom had health issues while I was in Holland. And it was really hard to be there and support my mom. somehow right and then she passed away from cancer that's another the big change was in my life I was very young I was 24 and then there was a time that kind of I destroy a lot in my life. Then was another big change. We moved from Holland to Georgia, and from Georgia we moved back in the US. My wife was like, again? We're gonna do this again. We settled in Holland finally.

24:52We're good. Everything is great, and now we're going in the US. Yes, but actually she absolutely loved that idea as well because... Moving to the US? Yeah, first I traveled here, I came down. I was invited from one of the Philadelphia's boxing gym to start boxing career, but I checked out Philadelphia, traveled to New York and DC, and last stop was LA. And when I came in Cali, I was like, that's the right place to come. The weather is a big game changer. What's the weather like in Georgia? Oh, in Georgia we got a great poor season. We have a very nice summer, hot. We got beautiful autumn and spring when the nature is changing, not cold or something like that.

25:43And we have winter when sometime has some snow in the city, but nothing crazy. It's not like Russia. like freezing and stuff no like that we have a mountain in you know Caucasus Mountain that you can go and have skiing it's beautiful snowboarding it's amazing like whoever lives close by all the regions they know that that's the skiing resorts are in Georgia so while we have a Black Sea we also have a mountain yeah I mean it sits right on the ocean on the Black Sea It's very nice, yeah. So what was that transition, you know, moving from a beautiful place like that, then you're coming over to these random states in the U.S., finally landing in the most beautiful part of America, in Newport Beach.

26:33But then before that, you know, the transition, like, did it feel like a downgrade? Like, did America feel like the place that you wanted to be? Yeah, it was really different because we loved Europe. We loved Amsterdam. when we moved first we slowly worked we worked on a seven years to settled well there and we were very happy in the end and somehow something didn't click you know i was already one of the biggest naming in kickboxing in my weight division category but the price wise that was not what i dreamed of I wanted something much bigger. I felt like some talent I was wasting into something different.

27:20Because financially, even until today, kickboxing, it's not the same as what it used to be 20 years ago in Japan. It doesn't draw the attention. Now, you're known as one of the most technical fighters in the UFC. What does elite level striking demand that fans don't fully understand? Because what I've witnessed right now from your striking was like, that was crazy. I don't think fans really understand what it takes to be an elite level striker. You've got to know so much. You have to train a lot and get a lot of experience of, you know, the boxing. Boxing is the one thing, kicking is another thing.

28:08Mixing up these two things, let's say you are a good kicker but you're not a good boxer, or you're a good boxer, you're not a good kicker. You can use your hands to distract your opponent and then get benefit from kicks and then mixing up again and it's all like all that mixing the combination mixing hand to hand knees and whole leg it's very something that people don't understand how much it takes it to get like a habit you know yeah people train like 10 ,000 kick and they do well this or good boxing forever but just put the boxer into the MMA or kickboxing and you'll see how quick they're gonna fail it or someone who's let's say Taekwondo fighter you bring in kickboxing and even karate fighter who goes straight to kickboxing without experience they fail it's very quick so mixing up all the techniques is something that takes time and people don't understand today how much it takes it's all about experience so yeah I mean people are now not valuing striking as much you know as as ground and pound type of stuff.

29:47You know, they want the, it's all, I think there's a resurgence now in striking and really that's, you know, if fans witness the UFC, I mean, I think striking is obviously the most entertaining. Most exciting, definitely, yeah, most entertaining. And we were just having that discussion, like, for kids, it's obviously the most, like, exciting for them to do it versus like you know the technicalities behind you just and a lot of the fans don't don't understand how technical jiu-jitsu is and how much brain power goes into it versus like striking it's like the same we see punching we see kicking it's more fun we're not looking at the mental chest yeah even though I know it's as a striker it's definitely still mental chess yeah they can still have fun even if they don't have much experience it's much easier to start baby steps now um walk us through a real fight camp okay a really high level fight camp we see these fighters in here right now what's happening behind the scenes that the public never sees because the people are like fight camp like i don't even know what the heck a fight camp is Like what is a fight camp?

31:05What's a high-level fight camp? What's happening? Like how do you guys become the ultimate fighters in these camps? Yeah, there are so much that has not really seen on TV or publicly Like a lot of times people say that oh, I don't watch my opponents, but I don't care whoever he is I'll fight anyone and I'll do this and that. We all watched our opponents' fights. We tried to learn their skills, what type of shape they are, who they are training. It's something that kind of helps you to understand that we will be fighting, right? A lot of fighters, they have habits that, oh, after they punch, they drop the hand, or after they do left hook, they do shoot.

32:02take down something so it's we really study our opponent very well at least like we try high-level fighters that's what we do we got you know what's one of the most hardest in a camp to stay healthy because you come here you saw it here and all the MMA gyms when there are high-level fighters camp going going on a lot of times people get injured. So to stay injury-free for the whole camp, that's the most challenge. I mean, these weight cuts are gnarly. Like, you're probably rolling around 170. You fight at 145. Right now I'm 185. 185. So you drop 40 pounds for a fight. Oh, yeah. Last time I started camp, I was for 191.

32:55So 45 pounds over. You're going to drop 45 pounds for your next fight? Next, yeah, so far 40 probably. Yeah, you guys are not going to recognize me when I make the weight. But next day, yeah. What is dropping 40 pounds? And you're fit already. Like, what are you going to do to drop 40 pounds? Because you already train every day. nutrients follow my daily routine how I told you about my limited breakfast and the right supplements train multiple times per day walk because walking is great for burning the fat sometimes you run you train nothing happens you cannot break their weight on the scale you know it just doesn't come it's interesting that just a slower, like a little higher pace walking for 45 minutes to hour could be so much helpful to burn that little fat inside the park.

34:05All that makes much easier weight cuts. We all do that. We try to nap between trainings, otherwise you'll feel really tired and none of the training will be helpful.

34:24You know, the recoveries are multiple different facilities that we go and use. Do red light therapy, we do hyperbaric chamber, CIVAC therapy. Obviously, mechanically, like some injuries we have, we go see massage therapist, and acupuncture and all that stuff. Oh, I forgot in my daily routine, when I wake up, I start with ice baths as well. When I'm in the camp. You start with an ice bath? Yeah, every morning. You put your whole body in the ice bath? Like five days a week, I jump into 40, 40 Fahrenheit. So stay at least three minutes. You have an ice bath at the house? Yeah. So every morning you start, and that's, you do do the cold plunge.

35:13I do. Every morning. When I'm in a camp. In a camp. Okay. Yeah. Not normally. Normally I try to kind of relax a little bit, which doesn't last for long. Okay, so walk me through a morning routine during camp. My bedroom, when I sleep, when I'm in a camp, it's sealed and I have an altitude chamber where I sleep. every single night. So you come in my bedroom and it's like a big tent and you plug it in, there is a big machine, generates the altitude. So it's high altitude, over 8 ,000 feet. In your room? Yeah. And do you do your room here? Like are you leaving somewhere? You're doing it here at your normal house?

36:03In the house, in my bedroom, yeah. Wow. Because they flew, they did all that here. What does it do is like helps me to have benefit of my conditioning. It's like amazing, you say. And I do that every... Sometimes I sneak out from my tent. I try to stay there every night. It's not easy. The first two, three days and then starts your nose kind of sometimes bleed. bleeding, depends how you feel. It's like a higher mountain when you go. Yeah, I remember taking my kids just to Colorado on high altitude, they all had bloody noses. There are the fights in Colorado, there are fights in Mexico City. When people go there and if they don't used to it, they get tired in one round.