UFC champion Khamzat Chimaev‘s UFC 319 performance has been praised by MMA media members Ariel Helwani and Petesy Carroll.
Last Saturday night, Khamzat Chimaev finally climbed to the top of the mountain in mixed martial arts. He defeated Dricus du Plessis to claim the UFC middleweight championship, and he did so in fairly dominant fashion. He controlled the fight from beginning to end, and while DDP had a few moments here and there, it was nowhere near good enough to ensure he kept held of the belt.
Instead, Khamzat Chimaev turned in the best performance of his career to date – depending on who you ask, of course. Either way, it was a victory that left many MMA purists feeling stunned, if only because of the unbelievable power that Khamzat possesses.
Khamzat Chimaev is able to suffocate fighters and he can do so from the start of the round until the very end. He never really lets people get going, and while he’s faced adversity at points in the past, nobody has ever come particularly close to actually picking up a win over him.
In a recent podcast, the aforementioned Helwani and Carroll summed it up pretty neatly.
Khamzat Chimaev’s dominance analyzed
“There is no time to get off any offense here; you’re fighting for your life when you’re in there with him and he’s at the best he can be.”
Chimaev seemingly wants to be as active as he possibly can be as UFC champion, and we’re choosing to take that at face value.
There are many different middleweight contenders who will believe that they can cause him problems but based on what we saw over the weekend, it is going to take a picture perfect effort on the big stage in order to take the belt away from him.
