“In Spokane, it’s a small town, it’s a good gym, and coach Pablo Alfonso helped me a lot,” he said. “He takes care of me, it’s cheap to live out here and it’s good training at high elevation. And there’s no distractions out here. It’s just me by myself and I’m locked in, and I just train and try to get this money.”
Another UFC fighter joining him on that quest is lightweight rising star Terrance McKinney. It’s the perfect pairing of two prospects chasing the same goals, and when they’re not throwing punches at each other, they’re talking about their bright futures in the Octagon.
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“That’s all we talk about,” Kakhramonov said. “Every time he comes to the gym, Terrance has this charisma, and he’s like, ‘Man, we gotta take over.’ He always hypes me up, he says, ‘You look sharp,’ and I do the same thing, too, but I always push him. Everybody is so good around him, but I’m the opposite. I give him s**t all the time. (Laughs) ‘You gotta train more, you gotta run more.’ But we’re always helping each other out, we’re talking all the time, and I tell him, ‘Yeah, one day we’re gonna hold these belts together.’ We’re always having this conversation with each other. Terrance is a good dude. He’s a good dude to spar with, we train together, he’s strong, he’s big. And we do talk about our plans a lot.”
But what do those sparring sessions look like? Pay-per-view worthy?
“Those fight rounds, it’s like kung fu masters, spinning, dodging and some crazy stuff going on out there because I already know what he does, he knows what I do, so it’s amazing to spar with him,” he said. “The sparring with him is fun.”
