Latest news with #Chimaev
USA Today
a day ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Khamzat Chimaev's coach assures cardio on a 'different level' ahead UFC 319 title fight
Coach says to expect a better conditioned Khamzat Chimaev for UFC 319. NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. – Cardio. That's the first thing critics of Khamzat Chimaev point out when looking for any flaws in the Chechen fighter. Although he's generally been a dominant force in the UFC, more often than not running over his opponents in Round 1, Chimaev (14-0 MMA, 8-0 UFC) has had a couple of performances where people have questioned his ability to perform deep into a fight. Ahead of his five-round UFC 319 main event against UFC middleweight champion Dricus Du Plessis (23-2 MMA, 9-0 UFC), those questions have been put forward again by many in the MMA community. However, Joakim Karlsson, Chimaev's head coach, assures that Khamzat has evolved past those issues, and they won't be present on Aug. 16 at United Center in Chicago. "Man, you can't compare Khamzat, now, this time, with (the one from) one, two years ago," Karlsson said at a media day. "It's totally different. He has a different strength and conditioning coach now. It's a different level now. I don't think it's fair to compare him from one, two years ago. It's not the same." Apart from training with famed strength and conditioning coach Sam Calavitta, Karlsson has seen Chimaev step up in all areas of the game now that he's finally fighting for UFC gold. "He's just taking training more serious now," Karlsson explained. "He has good dedication to what he does because now it's serious stuff, it's coming up to a championship fight. So he's been more serious about everything. He's taking care of nutrition, sleep, recovery and everything. He's good."
Daily Mirror
a day ago
- Sport
- Daily Mirror
Khamzat Chimaev breaks silence on retirement rumours ahead of UFC title fight
The undefeated middleweight star is set for his first title fight later this month, but some have suggested that Chimaev could retire if he wins the gold strap Khamzat Chimaev has dismissed speculation that he might hang up his gloves if he captures the middleweight title at UFC 319 later this month. The unbeaten fighter gets his first shot at UFC gold on August 16 when he takes on current middleweight king Dricus Du Plessis in Chicago. Chimaev heads into the bout following a commanding first-round submission victory over Robert Whittaker last October. 'Borz' has been tipped for greatness since joining the UFC roster in 2020, though injuries and health issues have disrupted his progress thus far. Last month, leading middleweight challenger Caio Borralho claimed that "whispers" indicate Chimaev would retire should he triumph next week, reports All Out Fighting. The fighter previously told his mother he would retire once he had secured a belt to take home to her, but he appears to have quashed talk of stepping away. Speaking to ESPN, he said: "Yeah, I've seen Caio said... I don't know where he hears those things. "I need money bro. This is not enough, just to go for the one title. Hopefully if I don't get injured or some stuff, gonna defend the belt or fight for other belt in Abu Dhabi, as well." The 31-year-old has pledged to continue fighting beyond UFC 319 as he sets his sights on glory across multiple divisions. "I work with a new coach and talk to him about going down again to 170lb. He said gimme a couple months and I'm gonna make it. I don't know who is the champ there, this Australian guy would be a good fight for me," he continued. "Go down, fight with him as well, take the belt there. If I go up, there is Ankalaev and Alex Pereira, they're fighting now. Whoever's winning, I can fight for that belt, as well." Prior to his comeback next weekend, Chimaev has revealed his spiritual outlook. 'Borz', a committed Muslim, is determined to leave behind a meaningful legacy before his time comes. "I believe in God, so I want to meet him as well," Chimaev continued during a different part of the interview. "Life is going really fast... I'm already 31," he acknowledged. I remember being 6 or 7 years old, and it feels like yesterday. I believe in God, so do good things before I meet Him. If you're not ready to die when it comes, you'll be scared. Maybe my thinking about that made me who I am today." When is Khamzat Chimaev vs Dricus Du Plessis? UFC 319 - topped by a middleweight championship bout between Chimaev and Du Plessis - takes place on Saturday, August 16 at Chicago's United Center. The early preliminary card is set to begin at approximately 11pm Saturday evening UK time, whilst the preliminary bouts will commence at roughly 1am Sunday morning UK time. The main card is set to kick off at 3am Sunday morning UK time. Chimaev, in the main event, will be the first to enter the cage at approximately 5:30am Sunday morning UK time, with Du Plessis following straight after. The match will be broadcast on TNT Sports and discovery+ in the UK, with the early preliminary rounds accessible on the UFC Fight Pass.
USA Today
a day ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Chael Sonnen: Khamzat Chimaev win puts Dricus Du Plessis in top three pound-for-pound
Chael Sonnen sees big stakes for Dricus Du Plessis if he can get his hand raised at UFC 319. Du Plessis (23-2 MMA, 9-0 UFC) defends his UFC middleweight title against Khamzat Chimaev (14-0 MMA, 8-0 UFC) in the Aug. 16 main event from United Center in Chicago (ESPN+, ESPN, pay-per-view). By handing Chimaev his first-career loss, Sonnen says Du Plessis would move up a couple of spots in the UFC's pound-for-pound rankings. Du Plessis holds two wins over Sean Strickland, and finishes over former middleweight champions Robert Whittaker and Israel Adesanya. "In a division that tough, and I used to be the king at middleweight, I knew middleweights inside and out, they did not have 10 Anderson Silvas at middleweight, but they do now," Sonnen said on "Good Guy/Bad Guy" with Daniel Cormier. If Dricus can go out and look good and get the win over Chimaev, I think he all of a sudden is going to be flirting with Islam's space and Ilia's space. "He's going to be flirting with the top three, and that's the only way we know how to compliment them in our industry, we give them a belt, we give them a main event, then we give them a little bit more, and that top three pound-for-pound placing is very within reach right now for Dricus." Oddsmakers are currently not favoring that outcome as Du Plessis enters his fight with Chimaev as a slight +150 underdog according to DraftKings.
New York Post
2 days ago
- Sport
- New York Post
For Dricus du Plessis, finishing Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 319 a bell-to-bell chase
When Dricus du Plessis first hit the octagon nearly five years ago, he did so having already won championships in two different weight classes and with multiple notable regional promotions around the world. But the man who now wears UFC middleweight gold is under no illusions that he could have burst on the scene and taken over right from the jump. 'I needed the time, for sure,' du Plessis told The Post on Thursday via video call. 'But I did that climb easy.' Dricus du Plessis celebrates after his middleweight title win over Sean Strickland in January 2024. Zuffa LLC via Getty Images That's typical of UFC newcomers, but it didn't stop a number of excited observers from imagining what Khamzat Chimaev, the challenger to du Plessis' throne for the UFC 319 main event on Aug. 16 in Chicago, might be able to do against championship-level competition amid his electrifying UFC start — when he won his first three bouts in the octagon during the three months preceding the current champ's promotional debut. With hindsight as a tool, du Plessis thinks it was just plain silly to imagine how then-welterweight Chimaev would have fared against the best in the world only nine fights into his pro career. 'There's no way on Earth,' he says of that notion before referring to a 2023 bout to drive home his point. 'Kamaru Usman was the [welterweight] champion at that stage. He fought Usman, off the couch and [on] 10 days' notice [at middleweight], and that fight could have gone either way, in my opinion. 'So, yeah, no, he wouldn't have been champion.' That's just the reality of the situation in the eyes of du Plessis, who put South African MMA on the map by becoming the nation's first UFC champion in January 2024 and making a pair of successful title defenses leading up to this one. That's not to be dismissive of Chimaev (14-0, 12 finishes), who du Plessis earlier this week told The Uncrowned's Ariel Helwani is a 'special fighter.' 'He's unbeaten at the top of the sport. That makes anybody special,' du Plessis (23-2, 20 finishes) elaborated to The Post. 'To stay unbeaten in this game is really, really hard. Another thing that makes him special is the fact that he has this hype, and people see him as a champion but he is not one.' Each of du Plessis' last four wins came against men who, at one time, held the championship he now carries around his waist: Robert Whittaker, Sean Strickland (twice) and Israel Adesanya. Adesanya's name reached star status during his vaunted first of two championship runs, but a victory over Chimaev might go a longer way to establishing du Plessis as, perhaps, one of the pound-for-pound best because of Chimaev's aura as an unbeaten who's mauled 12 of his 14 opponents. UFC middleweight champion Dricus Du Plessis throws out the ceremonial first pitch before the Cubs hosted the Reds on Tuesday in Chicago, where he is scheduled to headline UFC 319 on Aug. 16. AP Those other two, however, were incredibly competitive three-round battles with Usman and Gilbert Burns, a former welterweight title contender. It's those fights that offered chinks in the armor as they revealed a Chimaev who is still capable but also less effective as a fight goes on. Don't count on a rope-a-dope strategy from du Plessis, though. 'No, that's not me. That's never going to happen,' said du Plessis, a finisher who has gone the distance just three times as a pro. 'You can't go and say, 'Oh, this guy always gets tired.' What if he doesn't?' 'You don't bargain on somebody else's weakness when you go and fight,' he added. 'You don't know what that guy's going through, how he's preparing. … When the ref says, 'fight,' I'm fighting as hard as I can for as long as I can.' Two of those three decision victories came against Strickland, the first in a competitive clash to win the belt and the second a more one-way victory in February to retain gold. Stopping Strickland is a tall order, du Plessis explains, because he's defensively sound, doesn't take chances and 'takes a punch like a champion.' Chimaev's aggression in the cage is notorious, offering what du Plessis agrees is a more favorable scenario to secure the finish he seeks 'from the first second to the last.' 'In a fight like this, the finishes are much more all around us than a fight like Strickland.'
IOL News
2 days ago
- Sport
- IOL News
Chimaev is Du Plessis' biggest fight to date, and South Africa's
The South African is set to fight Chimaev in Chicago next week at UFC 319 to mark what will be his third fight in exactly 12 months, an almost rare feat for an MMA fighter. However, Du Plessis, as he has done throughout his career, has decided to stare straight into the eyes of adversity as he pushes to leave no doubt that he is indeed the best middleweight in the world. With unmatched wrestling and grappling skills and the sheer strength of the man, fighters shiver and try to stay as far away from the Chechen-born fighter. They call Chimaev "The boogeyman" of the UFC, and rightfully so. After all, the 31-year-old has rag-dolled every single one of his opponents since making his debut in 2020. The South African MMA Star and UFC Middleweight Champion has been calling out Khamzat Chimaev since his first title defence, when he finished UFC Hall of Famer Israel Adesanya in Australia a year ago. WHO calls out the most feared man in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, risking his belt, his legacy and unbeaten streak in the UFC? Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. While Chimaev carries this cloud of intimidation, Du Plessis goes into the fight as the underdog, at least to the bookies. Throughout his UFC career, the 31-year-old has been criminally underrated. Many have looked down on him for his 'unorthodox' fighting style and his 'poor' cardio at times. To many, the South African just wasn't championship material, and they believed it was only a matter of time until he got put back in his place. However, opponent after opponent, Du Plessis has silenced the noise as he became the first and only fighter to submit former champion Adesanya and knock out Robert Whittaker. This time around, many still believe he will succumb to Chimaev's pressure inside the octagon. However, the South African is confident to the point that he is offering the Chechen-born wrestler and grappler $10 000 for every takedown that he secures. It is as if Du Plessis knows something that the world doesn't know, and who can blame him when he and the Morne Visser-led, Pretoria-based CIT team have been able to break down every opponent to date. Despite his confidence, Du Plessis understands that this is the biggest fight of his life. Concurrently, the 31-year-old understands that this fight carries a lot of weight for South Africa and for South African MMA. What are the chances that the Professional Fighters League (PFL) would have debuted in South Africa last month and sold out if Du Plessis weren't the UFC champion? The event in Cape Town last month painted a vivid picture of just how passionate South Africans are about MMA, and even the great Khabib Nurmagomedov approved. This week, the PFL will host its second event in South Africa, Johannesburg, as South African MMA continues to shine. All this attention on South African MMA sets the stage for Du Plessis to prove once again that South African MMA deserves respect. The Chimaev fight is set for the United Centre in Chicago in the early hours of the 17th of August.
