Outside Source
Nascimento believes Chimaev substantially changed ahead of his fight against Robert Whittaker in 2024. While Chimaev once flipped off the crowd after missing weight by 7.5 pounds, “Borz” wore glasses and was respectful towards everyone going into his fight against Whittaker. This even had fans worried as they thought the wild and often unruly fighter had lost his hunger and aggression.
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However, Nascimento wasn’t worried as he had been observing Chimaev change since the birth of his son a year ago. Nascimento assured others that, while Chimaev previously used to be controlled by the animal inside him, he was now in control of the beast and would unleash it when needed. Chimaev proved “Finfou” right by breaking Whittaker’s jaw with a face-crank in the first round to earn a stoppage win.
“The biggest change in Khamzat as a more mature man came during the fight with Robert Whittaker, where everyone was like, ‘He’s not aggressive anymore, he’s wearing glasses, he’s too calm, maybe he’s not hungry anymore, maybe he doesn’t want it anymore, maybe he lost the aggression.’… That specific year was when everything switched because his son was born one year ago,” Nascimento told Real MMA Today. “Right before that fight, his son needed to get surgery… I knew that everything was OK with him, but people who didn’t follow that were worried. They were asking me and I said, ‘Before, he had an animal inside him that controlled him. Now he’s mature enough to still have that monster inside him, but he controls it. He doesn’t need to keep it leashed 24/7. He knows exactly the moment to unleash it. You guys gonna see.’ Then he went and fought Robert Whittaker, and everybody saw what happened.”
The win over Whittaker earned Chimaev (15-0) a title shot against Dricus Du Plessis, who he dominantly dethroned to become the Ultimate Fighting Championship middleweight champion last year.
This article first appeared at Recent News on Sherdog.com
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