Khamzat Chimaev would merely not be denied.
The dreaded fighter vowed to “smash everyone” when he joined the UFC 5 years in the past accompanied by large expectations and he can now name himself a champion after defeating Dricus Du Plessis to win the middleweight title Saturday evening in the primary occasion of UFC 319 in Chicago.
Chimaev has been thought of probably the most dominant grappler in all of blended martial arts and people expertise had been on full show as he swept the scorecards en path to a unanimous choice victory.
Though his smothering model resulted some in boos from the gang at United Middle, Chimaev was dominant from the very begin.
Chimaev took Du Plessis down instantly inside the first 10 seconds of the combat and shortly pinned Du Plessis in a crucifix place. Chimaev started touchdown small punches the facet of the top however Du Plessis defended nicely and absorbed little harm within the first 5 minutes.
The pair exchanged excessive kicks firstly of Spherical 2 earlier than Chimaev resumed his wrestling assault and commenced kneeing the thighs and legs of Du Plessis. Chimaev continued driving the again of his opponent and Du Plessis was pressured to focus solely on defending submission setups.
Chimaev trapped Du Plessis in one other crucifix for roughly half of Spherical 3 and continued his high stress for almost all of Spherical 4. He collected greater than 4 minutes of management time in every of the primary 4 rounds.
The ultimate spherical was probably the most aggressive, nonetheless Chimaev nonetheless managed greater than half the spherical on the bottom despite the fact that Du Plessis ended up touchdown extra important strikes than the brand new champ in Spherical 5.
Chimaev landed a outstanding 529 complete strikes in comparison with simply 45 from Du Plessis all through the 25-minute bout, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of Chimaev’s strikes weren’t important strikes. Chimaev landed 131 complete strikes in Spherical 1 however just one was deemed important; he landed 79 in Spherical 2 however solely 4 important; his greatest spherical was Spherical 3 with 156 complete strikes, 19 of which had been important; 76 complete strikes in Spherical 4 however simply 4 important and solely 9 of the 87 complete strikes he landed in Spherical 5 had been credited as important strikes.
When all was mentioned and completed, the important thing stats had been him being profitable on 12 of 17 takedown makes an attempt and the very fact he racked up 21:40 of management time.
The issue for Du Plessis was he merely couldn’t create any time or house to land a lot offence of his personal.
The South African star managed to reverse place a pair occasions in Spherical 5, trying a guillotine choke and a late rear-naked choke, each of which Chimaev was in a position to escape and regain high management.
“The person has unimaginable management on the highest,” Du Plessis mentioned after this primary loss within the UFC. “He’s only a blanket. It’s virtually as if he knew what your subsequent transfer was going to be, and he bought it with out utilizing an excessive amount of energy. … He beat me honest and sq. tonight.”
Du Plessis informed Sportsnet’s Aaron Bronsteter earlier this week he figured this matchup would go considered one of two methods: both Chimaev would come out tremendous aggressive and look to finish the combat early like he did towards Robert Whittaker final 12 months, or Chimaev could be cautious of doubtless fatiguing and tempo himself early because it was Chimaev’s first five-round combat and first UFC primary occasion.
It seems Chimaev did come out aggressive however by no means ended up fatiguing.
The 31-year-old was born and raised in Chechnya, spent a decade residing in Sweden and is now representing the United Arab Emirates. He entered the weekend because the betting favorite over the incumbent champ after amassing an ideal 8-0 document within the UFC and 14 consecutive wins in MMA since debuting in 2018.
The standout wrestler was thought of a blue-chip prospect from the second he first stepped into the Octagon in the summertime of 2020. Chimaev fought thrice throughout his first three months within the UFC. First he submitted John Phillips in a middleweight contest, then beat Rhys McKee by TKO simply 10 days later in a welterweight bout. He adopted that up by knocking out veteran middleweight Gerald Meerschaert in simply 17 seconds again up within the 185-pound division.
After experiencing some minor setbacks to his momentum attributable to varied accidents and sickness, Chimaev finally added wins over Li Jingliang (first-round submission), Gilbert Burns (unanimous choice) and Kevin Holland (first-round submission) to his document earlier than shifting again as much as middleweight.
Chimaev defeated former welterweight champion Kamaru Usman by three-round majority choice in 2023 in a short-notice matchup that Usman had accepted on lower than two weeks’ discover and pushed Chimaev exhausting for 3 rounds.
The combat that earned Chimaev a title shot was one more first-round win when Chimaev tapped out Whittaker, the previous middleweight champion, at UFC 308 in October. Chimaev dominated Whittaker and completed him with a vicious face crank submission that resulted in Whittaker requiring dental surgical procedure afterwards.
Chimaev is now 9-0 within the UFC, which was Du Plessis’s UFC document previous to UFC 319.
Du Plessis additionally debuted within the UFC in 2020. Chimaev was already 3-0 within the UFC when Du Plessis burst onto the scene with a knockout win over Markus Perez. He confronted progressively harder opponents through the years and broke by means of to the higher tier of the division with a technical knockout win over Whittaker in 2023 that earned him a title shot. Du Plessis turned champion in January 2024 after successful a five-round cut up choice over Strickland in the primary occasion of UFC 297 in Toronto. His first profitable title defence was one 12 months in the past when he submitted Israel Adesanya at UFC 305 then ran it again with Strickland, successful a dominant five-round choice earlier this 12 months at UFC 312 in February.
Du Plessis, now 9-1 within the UFC, vowed to return again stronger and finally reclaim the title.
It is unclear who Chimaev’s first title defence shall be towards, but the UFC has a handful of choices to think about.
Latest primary occasion winners and high middleweight contenders Reinier de Ridder and Anthony Hernandez had been in Chicago watching the occasion, as was Ciao Borralho who headlines UFC Paris in just a few weeks towards Nassourdine Imavov in what might find yourself being a title eliminator.
Additionally at UFC 319, Lerone Murphy made a case for getting the following featherweight title shot by welcoming former Bellator MMA star Aaron Pico to the UFC in a quite unceremonious trend.
Murphy put Pico to sleep with a spinning elbow knockout within the opening spherical of the co-main occasion. The 34-year-old from Manchester, England is 17-0-1 as a professional with 9 consecutive wins on the UFC stage.
Reigning featherweight titleholder Alexander Volkanovski posted, “See you in December,” on social media and congratulated Murphy moments after the knockout.
That wasn’t the one spinning elbow KO of the evening because the previous combat led to the identical means as Carlos Prates bought again within the win column with a spotlight knockout of Geoff Neal in welterweight motion. Prates misplaced a five-round choice to Ian Machado Garry of their April Struggle Evening primary occasion that snapped an 11-fight successful streak. Prates took Neal out with a spinning elbow KO on the finish of Spherical 1.
Prates is from Brazil and after the win known as for a spot on the upcoming Oct. 11 Struggle Evening card scheduled to happen in Rio de Janeiro. Prates has 5 knockout wins since 2024 which is greater than some other fighter throughout that point.
Michael “Venom” Web page styled on Jared Cannonier early of their middleweight matchup and ended up successful a unanimous choice.
The 38-year-old from England isn’t a pure middleweight however moved up from welterweight earlier this 12 months to pursue a enjoyable model conflict with fellow striker Shara Magomedov. Web page beat Magomedov in February and caught round within the division for this matchup with one-time title challenger Cannonier, who received the ultimate spherical however it was too little, too late.
Kai Asakura fell to 0-2 within the UFC after being submitted by Tim Elliott within the opening bout of the primary card. Asakura made his debut in December in a title combat towards Alexandre Pantoja however was tapped out within the second spherical of that matchup as nicely. Elliott hadn’t fought since a submission win over Sumudaerji greater than a 12 months and a half in the past.
UFC 319 was the group’s eighth occasion in Chicago and the primary journey there since 2019.
