The MMA world probably hasn’t hyped up any fighter since Conor Mcgregor as they did with Khamzat ‘Borz’ Chimaev. The Chechen phenomena had his first two fights in a span of 10 days both of which he won in a dominant fashion. Such a feat got the fans and the promotion extremely hyped up and they began holding him to a high standard.
The Khamzat Chimaev hype train nearly came to a staggering halt when he faced veteran Welterweight Gilbert ‘Durinho’ Burns, who nearly ended Chimaev’s win streak. Since they fought in the octagon, Burns got some level of understanding on the character of Khamzat and evaluated the Russians recent rise to fame in a negative fashion.
What does Gilbert have to say?
Speaking with Superlutas, Gilbert accused Khamzat of turning down fights against Middleweights Paulo ‘Borrachinha’ Costa and Alex ‘Paotan’ Pereira. Burns evaluated ‘Borz’s chances saying, “I took him [Chimaev] down, imagine ‘Poatan’. If I knocked him down, Poatan’s hand must be very heavy. I took him down and he [Chimaev] keeps talking nonsense with these guys. ‘Poatan’s hand is huge, ‘Borrachinha’s is huge.”
Another one of Khamzat’s highlight actions was his fight ‘anyone, anywhere, anytime’ attitude however, other than his first two fights, the Russian fighter has always taken sizable breaks in between fights. He also failed to make weight by a huge margin against Nate Diaz for UFC 279. GIlbert explains this lack of direction saying,
“It’s not that he [Chimaev] got lost. He didn’t find himself. Things happened too fast for him. With three fights, he was already the guy. At first, I liked it a lot. He challenged and fought. Then he got out of character. Gives up hitting weights, confusion here, there. I like this style, the guy who challenges everyone. There is no bad time.”
What comes next?
Gilbert is currently training for his bout against Neil Magny which is scheduled for the Rio fight card. Khamzat has all kinds of names including Colby Covington and Paulo Costa thrown at him but no proper opponent has been finalized. Time is not stopping for the 28-year-old and fans want to see him get his act together both inside and outside the octagon as soon as possible.
