Outside Source
Chimaev was originally scheduled to fight Paulo Costa at UFC 294 in 2023. However, an injured Costa was replaced by Kamaru Usman on nine days’ notice. While Chimaev earned a majority decision victory, Usman was arguably his toughest test to date. As Chimaev was visibly exhausted in the final round, many believe that Usman could have won if the fight had been a five-round bout. However, Nascimento explains that they had specifically prepared for a three-round fight, which is completely different than preparing for a five-rounder.
Chimaev finally went five rounds while challenging Dricus Du Plessis for the middleweight title at UFC 319 last year. “Borz” ragdolled du Plessis for 25 minutes to earn a dominant, unanimous decision victory. While critics have stopped questioning Chimaev’s gas tank for now, he was slammed for a boring performance against Du Plessis. “Finfou” reveals that Chimaev had asked for his approval to strike with Du Plessis, which was probably denied. Nascimento believes that if Chimaev had been knocked out while exchanging on the feet with Du Plessis, detractors would still slam him for straying away from his gameplan.
“We had a fight with Kamaru Usman. We were preparing for one type of fighter, Paulo Costa… A couple of days before the switch, they switched, the opposite — we didn’t prepare for that… And then people start to say, ‘If it would five rounds.’ Bro, this is delusional,” Nascimento told MMA Today. “We all know this is a three-round fight — preparation for three rounds… Five rounds, pure dominance [against Dricus], so now nobody talks about fighting five rounds anymore. But people say that the fight was boring. Khamzat asked, ‘Can I strike?’ and if we said yes, we’d just become sloppy, unprofessional, and cocky at the wrong moment… If he got knocked out, everybody would say, ‘What an idiot, why did he change? He was dominating the guy. The coaches let him do this.’”
This article first appeared at Recent News on Sherdog.com
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