Daniel Cormier recently made headlines after his comments on Khamzat Chimaev, where he argued how the Swedish-Chechen fighter might never find his true star potential days after his decision to withdraw from the fight against Robert Whittaker this week in Saudi Arabia. However, there’s a case to be made that Cormier’s statement is far from the truth.
Yes, Khamzat Chimaev hasn’t been as active as UFC fans would probably want him to be. A reputation that he has made for himself when he fought a record 4 times in less than 15 months after making his UFC debut. However, since October 2021, after his fight with Li Jinliang, Borz has only competed thrice.
This includes two fights in the year 2022, against Gilbert Burns and Kevin Holland, and only once last year against Kamaru Usman at UFC 294 in October 2023. And in all honesty, that’s not bad!
So, to say, multiple withdrawals from high-profile fights have diminished his star power, and taken away the aura that he once carried as a fighter is an understatement.
Khamzat Chimaev has fought the absolute best in his short run with the UFC
Khamzat Chimaev looked unstoppable when he cruised through fighters not considered UFC’s elite by fight fans. The dominance he showed in his first four fights is what pushed Chimaev to the top and made him an overnight sensation. This was until he fought top-ranked Gilbert Burns in just his fifth fight that fans started questioning his skills.
Needless to say, he emerged victoriously albeit with mixed responses from fight fans, only to completely dismantle Kevin Holland in the first round in his return less than five months later. Chimaev would go on to have a tough fight against none other than Kamaru Usman, making fans doubt his credibility and potential of becoming a future UFC Champion once again.
In this comparison, fans remained oblivious to the fact that every fighter has had difficulty showing the same kind of dominance they once showed against lower-ranked opponents. This stands true for Islam Makhachev in his fights against Alexander Volkanovski and Dustin Poirier in recent memory. And if we go back in time, Georges St-Pierre, Anderson Silva, and Jon Jones have faced similar situations. So what makes Khamzat Chimaev so prone to such criticism? No one, but himself.
Khamzat Chimaev is paying the price of his own doing
It’s more or less a Conor McGregor treatment from fight fans where his trash talk has become so impactful that when it doesn’t go in the favour of Chimaev, it comes back to bite him and it comes back to bite him good.
Granted, Chimaev is nowhere close to the level of stardom McGregor is at, and one can argue, he might never be, considering the comparison is against The Notorious, but to write him off with a statement that he has missed the bus, is completely wrong.
Moreover, Chimaev has fought at least once every year, and 2024 isn’t even half way in. At 30 years old, Khamzat Chimaev already holds a win over a former Champion, and if medical reasons are to subdue his aura, his return to winning ways is only going to make him an ever bigger star.
Akin to Khabib Nurmagomedov who did not compete for almost two years after his fight against Rafael dos Anjos, Chimaev’s journey has only begun. And it’s only a matter of time before he fights again and fans start to realise, maybe he was everything he said he was going to be. Be that as it may, only time will reveal the true picture.