Former UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov highlighted a tactical flaw in Khamzat Chimaev’s fighting style during a podcast over a year ago, a mistake that resurfaced in Chimaev’s title bout against Sean Strickland at UFC 328.
In an episode of the HUSTLE SHOW, Nurmagomedov broke down Chimaev’s approach: “You have to consider every scenario: what if it goes this way, what if it goes that way, what if we come from here? You need to account for everything. For me, setting a fight plan was never difficult. I always had one option: I would go in and take them down. If it worked, great; if not, I would try a hundred times. But in Khamzat’s fights, you don’t see that. Look at his bouts with Gilbert Burns or Kamaru Usman: in the later rounds, he stops wrestling and starts striking. If the takedown isn’t working, he stays on the feet. But if he had started striking from the very beginning against those guys—both Gilbert and Kamaru—he would have looked much better without wasting extra energy.”
Chimaev’s decision to abandon his wrestling in the later rounds against Strickland proved costly, as he lost a split decision in a fight where many felt his dominant grappling could have secured the win.
