Khamzat Chimaev shut down all his haters with his performance at UFC 308. Not just that, he made a new fan in UFC interim heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall.
The Russian dominated former middleweight champion Robert Whittaker on his way to a submission victory in the very first round. His performance was so vicious that it put the entire division on notice, reminding them how scary a healthy ‘Borz’ is.
Aspinall, who is a couple of weight classes above even went on to admit that he wanted to be as dominant as ‘Borz’ inside the octagon.
“The guy is absolutely incredible. To do that to Robert Whittaker, honestly it just inspires me to be better because you go in and dominate a former champion like that….being completely one-sided, inspiring man…he’s definitely gonna be a champion”
And if Stipe Miocic and Jon Jones don’t retire after UFC 309, he might even have a chance to do it when the Brit finally gets his shot at the undisputed title.
Meanwhile, the ‘Borz’ will need to continue dominating if he wants to get close to the middleweight title. Despite the jaw-breaking performance at UFC 308, Sean Strickland is the current favorite to take on the champion.
If somehow the UFC decides to overlook Strickland and send ‘Borz‘ to the South African, he will need to be on the top of his game and be prepared to go the distance. DDP is as unorthodox a fighter as there ever has been and can go toe to toe with Chimaev for strength along with the unpredictability of someone in a bar fight.
However, until that happens, Chimaev can just chill out and collect his flowers.
Team Khabib praises Khamzat Chimaev
Khamzat Chimaev has earned praise from the head coach of AKA, Javier Mendez. The man behind both Islam Makhachev and Khabib Nurmagomedov’s success in MMA spoke about how much he enjoyed that dominant performance by Chimaev.
“When he takes you down, great control, great everything. And then when Robert gave his back, he got on that and the jaw went snap.”
Not only did ‘Borz’ get the submission victory over Robert Whittaker, he essentially smashed his jaw in, which at the time nobody realized. People were just shocked and confused to see a seasoned prize fighter like Whittaker tap so quickly. It was only after Daniel Cormier shared a picture of the inside of his mouth that everybody realized his teeth had been pushed back into his mouth and that too, through a face crank!
Riding high on this win, the Russian only has eyes for the title shot now, and deservedly so. He has climbed his way up the ladder and all that is remaining is the last step. Hopefully he doesn’t catch another cold!