Khamzat Chimaev has received some criticism for his title winning performance on UFC 319 despite the pure dominance.
On Saturday, the Premier promotion returned to Chicago for UFC 319 for the first time since 2019, headed by a middleweight title battle between Dricus du Plessis and Khamzat Chimaev.
In a surprising result, Chimaev du Plessis dominated for five rounds, even though there were concerns about his cardio coming in and became the new champion of 185 pounds.
Almost immediately after winning the title, “Borz” explained who he will probably fight and he hopes to make his first defending defense in October at UFC 321.
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Du Plessis's head coach SLAMS Chimaev for his 'boring' version
On the way to the fight, the consensus was that the chips would end the fight in the first few rounds, or Du Plessis would end the early storm and further dominate with his cardio.
Nevertheless, Chimaev showed a clear improvement in his cardio when he dominated the South African on the ground for 20 minutes, landing more than 500 total strikes.
However, because 'Borz' did not come close to ending the fight at any time, a large majority of the UFC fan base criticized its performance and labeled it as boring.
It agrees that sentiment is Morne Visser, the head coach of Du Plessis, who is only a day away from losing the title on UFC 319, has struck the performance of Chimaev.
“After that there was a stat of Khamzat landing like 570 shots and only 37 of them were important. He just did enough to, he clearly checked the positions very well and he just did enough to prevent the referee from being fighting,” Visser told Submission Radio.
“I think that when S – goes so slowly … the battle is up. That fight was beaten with dullness and yes, we are guilty because they also make it boring, but we just needed an extra minute there.
“I think the fight was made by a lot of dullness, I don't think the crowd was happy … Three minutes after the fight they were cheering Khamzat because they just held Dricus,” the head coach continued.
The head coach of Du Plessis explains which advice he gave between rounds
However, Chimaev was not the only one who was criticized on Saturday evening, because Visser was also criticized because he did not give tactical advice between the rounds.
“After the first round, the very first thing I asked was Dricus, was he okay? Of course trying to fight against someone who is struggling so hard that your arms quickly rinse, he was 100% okay and we actually laughed about it.
“I said to him,” This is the very best he has “… I just didn't think he would do that five rounds. After the third I told Dricus” We are now three down, do you want to take him down? ” We learned a lot, a lot to go back, “Visser explained.