Mateusz Gamrot calls out 'God of Comfort Zone' Benoit Saint Denis for UFC Paris showdown
Show Caption
Hide Caption
Mateusz Gamrot calls for top lightweights after halting Ludovit Klein
UFC on ESPN 68 winner Mateusz Gamrot talks to MMA Junkie and other reporters post-fight after his unanimous decision victory over Ludovit Klein.
LAS VEGAS – Mateusz Gamrot not only wants to beat Benoit Saint Denis, but he also wants him to change his fighter nickname.
Following a dominant win over Ludovit Klein at Saturday's UFC on ESPN 68, Gamrot (25-3 MMA, 8-3 UFC) called out the Frenchman, and he did so by taking a shot at his "God of War" nickname. Gamrot, who had been searching for a fight for months prior to the Klein booking, claims he was offered to be Saint Denis' replacement opponent for UFC 315 earlier in May, but Saint Denis turned him down and ended up fighting and submitting Kyle Prepolec.
The move didn't sit well with Gamrot, and now he wants to fight him in the UFC's expected show in Paris in September.
"I can change Benoit Saint Denis' nickname," Gamrot told reporters at the UFC on ESPN 68 post-fight press conference. "He has the nickname 'God of War,' but I can change his nickname to 'God of Comfort Zone' because bro, he got offered to fight with me one week before, and many times he called me out. So he gets opportunity and he says no. Bro, what the f*ck? 'God of Comfort Zone.'"
Gamrot fought an unranked opponent in Klein this past Saturday, something that's relatively unusual for someone who's just outside the top five of the UFC official lightweight rankings. The Polish fighter admits being frustrated at the difficulty he's faced lately in getting the bigger names in the division.
"When I came to Florida, I always asked to give me the fight, but this moment everybody was booked in the ranking, so I had two options: Wait a few months later and get someone from ranking or take someone without ranking and be active," Gamrot said. "So the choice for me was clear: I want to fight. Of course, this was a big risk, but like I said before, If you be live in yourself and your skills, you can fight with everybody. I did this, I took this fight. It was a big risk, but I won tonight, so I'm so happy: double check."
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
USA Today
10 minutes ago
- USA Today
Demetrious Johnson on Dricus Du Plessis and Khamzat Chimaev's keys to victory at UFC 319
Demetrious Johnson broke down the Dricus Du Plessis vs. Khamzat Chimaev fight, then gave his prediction. Du Plessis (23-2 MMA, 9-0 UFC) defends his middleweight title against Chimaev (14-0 MMA, 8-0 UFC) in Saturday's UFC 319 main event (pay-per-view, ESPN, ESPN+) at United Center in Chicago. Johnson started out with keys to victory for Chimaev, who's most recent wins have come over former UFC champions Kamaru Usman and Robert Whittaker. "Key to victory No. 1 for Khamzat Chimaev is he's got to make sure he wins that first round in that first clash," Johnson said on his YouTube channel. "When they come head-to-head in the beginning, and he decides to shoot from way outside of the void, he's got to win that grappling exchange because if he doesn't win that grappling exchange, I think that's going to do something to him mentally. Key No. 2, I hope he worked on if he failed that first clash, because if he didn't work on that, he's going to be straight dog doodoo. "It's not a lot of keys to victory for Khamzat. It's more about, is he prepared to go to the third round? I mean, he's gone three rounds, but those three rounds he's went against, the Gilbert Burns fight was a back-and-forth war. When he fought Kamaru Usman, I felt that Kamaru Usman kind of slowed down – he was shadow boxing the entire time. Nothing was really going on. We've never seen Khamzat shoot a shot when he desperately has to. We always see Khamzat shoot on his behalf when he wants to." The former UFC flyweight champion then went onto give Du Plessis' keys to victory, and ultimately picked him to retain his title. "Key to victory No. 1 for DDP is you have to win that first exchange, as well," Johnson said. "The first clash is always the one that dictates what's going to happen when you fight Khamzat, so DDP's got to make sure he wins that first one. Key No. 2: Push the pace. When (Chimaev) seems to fail on those clashes, that's when you see a little weakness in his armor, is that his cardio isn't insane. But once again, that credits to his health. "He was always gassed out, he was always overtrained when he would fight. I'm going to have to go DDP just because DDP has fought the best of the best of the division. This guy's able to throw a right hand, fall, slip on a banana peel, and for some reason the (opponent) falls over. It just doesn't make sense how he's able to get things done, and he has a style where it forces people to do things that shouldn't have worked essentially. So for that, I'm going to go with DDP."
USA Today
an hour ago
- USA Today
Kamaru Usman picks former foe Khamzat Chimaev to dethrone Dricus Du Plessis at UFC 319
Kamaru Usman expects Khamzat Chimaev to test Dricus Du Plessis' grappling like never before. Du Plessis (23-2 MMA, 9-0 UFC) will look to notch his third title defense when he takes on Chimaev (14-0 MMA, 8-0 UFC) in Saturday's UFC 319 (pay-per-view, ESPN, ESPN+) main event at United Center in Chicago. Former UFC welterweight champion Usman is not surprised that Chimaev is a favorite over Du Plessis, and sees him living up to his championship potential. "Don't forget, DDP hasn't really fought a wrestler since Derek Brunson," Usman said on his "Pound 4 Pound" podcast with Henry Cejudo. "We saw how that looked in the first couple of rounds. Derek eventually gassed out and DDP does what he does best. DDP will not give up. That's what we love about him. He will not give up. DDP will continue to try. If DDP continues to try, and if Khamzat Chimaev hasn't done his work with that cardio, then I see DDP definitely turning this one around. But for me, this is a very, very tough one. "I think Khamzat Chimaev might actually go out there and get it done. If you look at the landscape of where we are right now, it's almost like every so often we get a turn, we get a new generation of guys that come out and just become the superstars of the game. You're talking Conor McGregor out of nowhere, the superstars of the game. You're talking about Alexander Volkanovski, Israel Adesanya. You're talking about Ilia Topuria. Now look at the landscape. We've got Tom Aspinall and you've got potentially Khamzat Chimaev." Usman was edged out by Chimaev in a majority decision loss at UFC 294 in October 2023. He took the fight on short notice and up a weight class, but Chimaev's early grappling attack proved to be too much.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Pity poor Dricus du Plessis, the blameless pariah of UFC 319
Dricus du Plessis got about six words into his first answer to the first question at Thursday's pre-fight press conference to promote Saturday's UFC 319 in Chicago. Then the boos shut him down. This poor guy. We don't say that often about the reigning champion in any combat sport. But my god, the look on his face at first. After a few seconds of this he managed to roll with it, laughing it off and letting the crowd have its fun. But those first moments? When he realized the crowd in Chicago was apparently all the way in the corner of undefeated challenger Khamzat Chimaev and passionately aligned against him? My friends, there was a look of surprise and a little bit of pain on the man's face. And when he decided to set the mic down and see just how committed to this bit the press conference crowd really was, it went nearly a full minute before UFC CEO Dana White spoke up to break the spell. If you're DDP in that moment, don't you have to wonder exactly what it is you ever did to these people? Was it winning his first six UFC fights — five of them inside the distance — before claiming the 185-pound title? Was it beating Sean Strickland twice with a submission win over Israel Adesanya, arguably the best middleweight of the last 10 years, sandwiched in between? Was it continually showing up when called upon, facing all comers and generally refraining from embarrassing the sport the way a few of its most established stars have? Maybe his crime is much simpler than that: He's not Khamzat Chimaev. You might not think that Midwestern fight fans would be all-in for a Chechen boogeyman with an Abe Lincoln beard, but they are. The same appears to be true for much of the UFC fan base as a whole. People love this man of few words, about 25% of which are some combination of 'smash' and 'brother.' He shows up with this malevolent grin, like the neighborhood's most worrisome kid getting ready for another wonderful day of pulling the legs off insects. Every person his eyes fall upon, it's like he's automatically doing the math in his head to determine what it would take to lift them off their feet and move them somewhere unkind. Of course fight fans go for that. How could they not? And the fact that he's felt like a champ in waiting for the last several years only increases the gleeful anticipation now that he's on the eve of finally getting his shot. But poor, poor DDP. All he's done is show up and win and still we refuse to believe in him. Every fight it's the same story. OK, we tell ourselves, he might have won the last one. But this one? Surely this is where it stops. Then he hurks and jerks his way to another victory while looking like an alien who's still learning to work the controls on his human suit and we tell ourselves that's all well and good but the next time he won't be so lucky. But this time. Against the terrifying and undeniable force that is Khamzat the Cruel. This time he's in for it, man. We're sure of it. All of which should force us to stop and ask, purely as a fun little thought experiment: What if that's wrong? What if the guy who's cashed as an underdog in three of his last four fights goes out there on Saturday night and does it again? For one thing, it'll crush the spirits of a lot of those gleeful boo-birds who showed up to the press conference. It will also give him victories over every middleweight we've ever branded as 'elite' since the end of the Anderson Silva era. Maybe (just maybe) it will even force us to treat the man with some damn respect. Because, really, what will there be left to say? What could we possibly hate on him for then? The MMA world is looking at him right now like he's a cow being marched off to a highly entertaining ritualistic sacrifice. If he turns out instead to be a bull that gores his way to bloody freedom, wouldn't we then have to admit that we were wrong? I know we hate doing that. But I just don't see any other choice if du Plessis leaves Chicago with the UFC middleweight title still part of his carry-on luggage. Those same people who dedicated a minute of their lives to shutting the man down with boos on Thursday will owe him an ovation that's at least twice as long if he's still standing on Saturday.
