Khamzat Chimaev once again showed an utterly dominant display of wrestling and grappling, but his former teammate made a bold claim.
On Saturday, Khamzat Chimaev finally fought for UFC gold when he took on Dricus Du Plessis for the middleweight title in the UFC 319 main event.
As he has done several times during his UFC tenure, Chimaev went on to dominate Du Plessis with his wrestling and sailed onto a unanimous decision win, becoming the new champion.
His performance wasn’t just dominant, but it was truly astonishing how he dominated the South African, out-landing him 529-45 in total strikes.
Chimaev issues response to Strickland after bold claim was made
Almost immediately after the event, UFC boss Dana White claimed that we could see ‘Borz’ back in action sooner rather than later, stating that he would look at adding him to UFC 321 in October.
Although there are several contenders that he could fight next, there is one middleweight it certainly won’t be, and that is former champion Sean Strickland.
Strickland and ‘Borz’ have somewhat of an ongoing feud despite having been training partners for a while before.
And following the Chechen’s title win on Saturday, Strickland made a bold claim that he used to ‘out-grapple’ Chimaev in training for five rounds, stating that he will pick up some wins so that he can fight Chimaev for the title and show that he can out-grapple him.
However, during the UFC 319 post-fight press conference, Chimaev laughed off Strickland’s claim, saying: “Bro, Dricus took him down many times, how can he take me down, come on. This guy, I beat him everywhere, striking, this guy just talks too much, he’s a funny guy, he’s working with Paulo Costa, I put them together.”
Middleweight contender promises to ‘drown’ Chimaev
There were several middleweight contenders watching the main event on the front row, one of whom was Anthony Hernandez, who is on an impressive eight fight win streak.
Following the main event, Hernandez promised that he would ‘drown’ Chimaev if he fought him, claiming that his gas tank would be too much for ‘Borz’.