Khabib Nurmagomedov criticizes Khamzat Chimaev’s UFC 279 behavior.
Khamzat Chimaev may have walked away from UFC 279 with another win on his record, but his reputation took a hit after he got into several altercations during fight week and then missed weight badly.
According to former UFC lightweight champion and top G.O.A.T. contender Khabib Nurmagomedov, Chimaev’s problems stem from the fact that he doesn’t have enough devout Muslims around him.
“If you are a Muslim, you should have good people around you,” Nurmagomedov said during a fundraiser for Pakistani flood relief (translation via Bloody Elbow). “Muslims who can say ‘Hey, don’t do this.’ I recently watched the weigh-in of Khamzat Chimaev. I followed what was happening with his weight and looked at his team. There are no Muslims around him and this is very bad. Because if you are a Muslim, you need good, strong people around you that will say ‘Come back, do this.’”
“When you become famous and rich, when you gain power and there are no people who will give advice or you do not listen to them, then something will happen,” Khabib concluded. “You need good people, even if you don’t like it, you need them.”
Khabib Nurmagomedov at the Birmingham Human Appeal event talking about Khamzat Chimaev and giving us an important reminder on surrounding yourself with the right people. pic.twitter.com/eDrjx1F4SU
— Borz (@Borz4562) September 11, 2022
Khamzat Chimaev missed weight by 7.5 pounds for his fight against Nate Diaz, causing a last-minute shuffle of the UFC 279 main card. Chimaev would end up fighting Kevin Holland, while Diaz fought Tony Ferguson. While Chimaev came away with the win, his hopes of a welterweight title shot are dashed until he proves he can make weight reliably.
According to Chimaev’s coach Andreas Michael, the Chechen fighter started cramping, throwing up, and passing out around four in the morning before the weigh-ins. On advice from the UFC’s doctors, Michael aborted Chimaev’s weight cut, choosing his fighter’s health and safety over concerns about his fight.
Nurmagomedov’s suggestion that Chimaev’s weight fail was the result of having bad people around him is interesting, considering Khabib famously struggled to make weight regularly during his UFC career. He missed weight by 2.5 pounds for his fight at UFC 160, then ended up hospitalized cutting weight to fight Tony Ferguson at UFC 209. The cut was so bad it took ‘The Eagle’ nine months and several visits to a specialist in Germany before he could compete again. And let’s not forget ‘the freebie’ for his last fight at UFC 254.
Could this be the spark that re-ignites a feud between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Khamzat Chimaev? Chimaev took some serious heat from Team Nurmagomedov for claiming he’d ‘smash’ the Dagestani champion. Things got so bad that Khamzat was released as a client by his manager Ali Abdelaziz, who also handles Khabib. A formal apology was made, but relations remain tense as both men remain prickly about perceived insults.
https://twitter.com/Bendaman2001/status/1569167137461387264
What do you think, BJPENN Nation? Does Khamzat Chimaev need to surround himself with better people or is Khabib Nurmagomedov out of line talking about weigh-in issues? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!