Khamzat Chimaev’s coach remained largely silent during UFC 319 fight week, but he’s piped up after his man’s dominant performance.
Chimaev completed his journey to UFC gold as an undefeated fighter in Chicago this past Saturday night, and his victory was rarely in doubt from minute one.
Dricus du Plessis was dominated by Chimaev for the best part of 25 minutes, with the one-sided trend of the main event being set by a takedown in the opening seconds of the first round.
From that moment until the end, the South African had no answer for the Chechen star’s smothering ground game. In addition to Chimaev’s talents and training, the newly crowned champion’s coach thinks that is also down to poor advice on the side of Du Plessis.
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Khamzat Chimaev’s coach says whoever prepared Dricus du Plessis’ ground game should be sacked
Not many have been able to deal with Chimaev’s wrestling game. Even in Chimaev’s toughest test to date against Kamaru Usman, ‘The Nigerian Nightmare’ simply had to survive the onslaught early on before being able to rally.
But Du Plessis has still come under fire for his lack of resistance on the ground, and one of Chimaev’s coaches evidently thinks the now-former champ did not have the right personnel in his UFC 319 camp.
While speaking in a video posted to Daniel Cormier’s YouTube channel, coach Alan Nascimento recalled Du Plessis and his coach claiming they welcomed wrestling battles. Chimaev’s trained suggested that whoever was in charge of preparing the South African on the ground should be fired.
“His coach was saying that Du Plessis wants to fight on the ground and he would beat Khamzat on the ground,” Nascimento said.
“I was quiet. I believe that, now, whoever was preparing him on the ground, he’s gonna get fired.
“It is my time to talk now,” he continued after laughing. “I was quiet the whole time. I didn’t say a word. I was just doing the job.
“Now I am speaking facts. If anyone missed what happened, they can go back to UFC Fight Pass.”
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Khamzat Chimaev almost broke a UFC grappling record that has stood for 18 years
Given Chimaev’s dominance at UFC 319, it is no surprise that he broke a major record and came close to replicating the feat in another category.
Chimaev landed an astonishing 529 strikes on Du Plessis throughout the five-round contest that saw him become champion, breaking the single-fight UFC record. Making the statistic even more eye-opening was the difference between his and the defending champ’s strikes, with the South African landing a measly 45.
‘Borz’ landed almost all of those shots while in a dominant grappling position, as he racked up a hard-to-believe 21 minutes and 40 seconds of control time.
That figure put Chimaev behind only Sean Sherk for the most control time in a UFC fight. ‘The Muscle Shark’ surpassed 22 minutes during his 2007 fight against Hermes Franca to defend the lightweight title.