Khamzat Chimaev attacked the wrong person – Newspaper Kommersant No. 167 (7368) of 09/12/2022

One of the brightest phenomena of mixed martial arts (MMA), welterweight Khamzat Chimaev, won another – the sixth in a row – victory in the main form of the UFC promotion, defeating the American Kevin Holland by choke hold in the first round. True, this success of a native of Chechnya, representing Sweden, had a scandalous connotation. Before the fight, Chimaev took an active part in a mass brawl that disrupted the mandatory press conference, and then failed the weigh-in, which is why Holland’s famous compatriot Nate Diaz refused to meet with him.

The UFC 279 tournament in Las Vegas, in which Khamzat Chimaev performed, turned into one of the most scandalous stories of the year in mixed martial arts. His central fight was to be a fight between Chimaev and Nate Diaz in the welterweight (up to 77 kg) with a chic “billboard”.

Born in Chechnya and moved to Sweden at the age of 18, Khamzat Chimaev is a real phenomenon. A good freestyle wrestler took up mixed martial arts only at the age of 23, but made an incredible breakthrough, having won 11 victories in a row before the past weekend, 5 of them after signing a prestigious contract with the UFC. Moreover, only in two cases, Chimaev’s opponents managed to hold out for more than one round, and only the seasoned Brazilian Gilbert Burns, who opposed the 28-year-old fighter, who was confidently moving towards the championship matches, lasted until the end of the match, in April of this year.

Nate Diaz is, on the contrary, almost a full-fledged MMA legend, even if the legend is rather on the decline. By the age of 37, he had a lot of fights with outstanding opponents, he defeated many of them, once having dealt with, for example, the Irishman Conor McGregor, who was once considered the king of mixed martial arts. In general, the spectacle promised to be peppery.

But this fight was not destined to take place. The first blow to the tournament was dealt by an unprecedented fight for the UFC, if not in terms of cruelty, then in terms of mass (about a hundred people were involved in it), which was started by fighters and representatives of their teams before the weekend and played an important role just for some reason not on jokingly boiled Khamzat Chimaev. Due to the brawl, the mandatory press conference of the athletes had to be canceled: the head of the promotion, Dana White, was afraid that it would not be possible to ensure safety during it. The second blow was the weigh-in. Chimaev, unlike Diaz, failed him. At the same time, he showed on the scales not a symbolic excess of a couple of hundred grams (this happens not so rarely), but as much as three kilograms. Chimaev explained that he started cutting weight on Thursday, two days before the fight, but at some point the doctors, seeing that there was still a lot to lose, stopped the fighter, fearing for his health.

Khamzat Chimaev and Nate Diaz were offered to fight in the so-called intermediate category, but here the American was already up in arms. As a result, the UFC, in order to save the tournament, had to urgently shake up the combinations. Diaz was brought together with another famous veteran from the United States, Tony Ferguson, depriving him of a meeting with Li Jingliang, and Chimaev with Kevin Holland, an experienced middleweight fighter, but, of course, far from being such a bright star as Nate Diaz.

Both have won. Nate Diaz caught Ferguson in the guillotine in the fourth round, and Khamzat Chimaev finished his fight even faster. Holland, in fact, was preparing to fight against a good striker with a mediocre wrestling background, Daniel Rodriguez, and then he found himself in front of a classy wrestler who quickly showed that such an opponent had nothing to do against him. Chimaev immediately transferred the American to the ground, and then, improving his position, he chose the perfect moment for a choke hold. Kevin Holland couldn’t defend against him. The fight lasted 2 minutes 13 seconds – less than half a round. And Khamzat Chimaev, pleased, despite the incident, shouted, triumphant, to the public and, apparently, to the UFC leadership at the same time that “he will come for anyone.” And it must be assumed that, given only the fighter’s media coverage that has grown over this weekend, incidents with him will not prevent the promotion from appointing a match for Chimaev soon with some valuable prize at stake.

Alexey Dospekhov