Khamzat Chimaev finally gets a headline spot as he takes on Robert Whittaker in the UFC’s inaugural event in Saudi Arabia, on June 22nd.
This is undoubtedly Khamzat Chimaev‘s toughest test so far, with Robert Whittaker showcasing in his UFC 298 fight against Paulo Costa, that he still has attainable middleweight title aspirations.
When Dana White announced this fight, he announced it as a ‘number one contender’ fight, with the winner securing a middleweight title shot.
The current middleweight champion, Dricus Du Plessis, has been teasing that he will defend his 185lb title against Israel Adesanya at UFC 305 in Perth, scheduled for August 18th.
Khamzat Chimaev has one clear weakness that Whittaker excels in
The undefeated Chimaev has shown holes in his game over his past few fights.
His last fight came against the former welterweight champion, Kamaru Usman, after ‘The Nigerian Nightmare’ stepped in on just a few week’s notice to save the UFC 294 co-main event after Paulo Costa pulled out.
After an utterly dominant round one which scored him a 10-8 on all three judges’ scorecards, Chimaev slowed down dramatically in the following two rounds with David Lethaby deeming Usman to have won rounds two and three.
In his fight against Gilbert Burns a year prior to that, a similar picture was painted as the 29-year-old did only just enough to pick up the win.
With both of those bouts only being three rounds, this has raised a lot of concern around ‘Borz’s gas tank, and whether he will be able to compete at a high level in a five-round fight.
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Competing well in five-round fights is something Robert Whittaker has done several times throughout his 12-year UFC tenure. Whittaker has gone to the fifth round five times in his UFC career, winning all but one.
Georges St-Pierre explains how Whittaker could make Chimaev ‘look bad’
Sharing the opinion of Michael Bisping is former two-weight world champion, Georges St-Pierre. The UFC Hall Of Famer believes that Whittaker’s style and experience could end up making the undefeated middleweight ‘look bad’.
“If there’s a guy that can stop Chimaev, it’s Robert Whittaker because if you look at Chimaev, we can compare him in a way to Yoel Romero.” GSP told Main Event TV. “Romero was a very good wrestler, very explosive and powerful, and Whittaker was his kryptonite.”
‘The Reaper’ fought and beat Yoel Romero on two separate occasions, putting a stop to the dominant wrestling of the Cuban and outstriking him in both title fights.
“Stylistically he’s very capable of doing the same to Chimaev to make Chimaev look bad. Robert has a very unusual style from a karate background and he utilizes his karate skills very well.
“Karate specialists have a very different style, we use different timings to blitz in, and the way we control the distance, it seems very unusual for our opponent because most of the guys in MMA are from a kickboxing or Muay Thai background, so karate gives you an edge.” St-Pierre added.
If Whittaker is able to hand Chimaev his first loss, it will set up either a trilogy fight with Israel Adesanya or a rematch with South African champion, Dricus Du Plessis.
‘The Last Stylebender’ took the title from the 33-year-old back in 2019 at UFC 243. Whittaker went on to string together three wins in a row, earning him a rematch with Adesanya at UFC 271. Again Adesanya left victorious after a very close decision.
The New Zealander fought Du Plessis more recently at UFC 290, where ‘Stillknocks’ scored a massive upset win with a second-round knockout.