T.J. Dillashaw was around Khamzat Chimaev for a good chunk of Chimaev\u2019s UFC 328 fight camp, and the last thing Dillashaw expected when Chimaev fought Sean Strickland was for him to struggle in the cage\u2014and with his weight cut.<\/p>\n
Strickland ended up winning the fight via split decision to regain the UFC middleweight title, but a lot of the storylines heading into the final 24-hour stretch had to do with how the previously-unbeaten Chimaev looked on the scale at the official weigh-ins.<\/p>\n
Dillashaw, who now owns Wild Society Nutrition, is well-versed on how weight cuts work being a former two-time bantamweight champion. He knew immediately during fight week things were off.<\/p>\n
\u201cKhamzat looked like an animal for his camp, like he was unbeatable,\u201d Dillashaw told MMA Fighting. \u201cThere was no way he was going to get beat, but then you get someone that you\u2019re paying\u2014there\u2019s a lot of frauds in this world\u2014and the way that they made him cut weight was horrible. What he needed to do, I introduced him to Calavitta and Sam Calavitta is the best in the business. You can say whatever you want about it, what he does that people don\u2019t do, he\u2019s so smart and the amount of work that he puts into a camp is insane.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike everything, the way you\u2019re recovering, the supplements you\u2019re taking, the minerals you\u2019re missing in your body from blood work, hair samples, what your hormone levels are doing, like everything. [If] you want to reach that peak performance. He\u2019s the guy to go with. And then, unfortunately, they had trusted someone else to do some of his nutrition and weight cut towards the end and it just ruined it all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following the official weigh-in, and even after his victory, Strickland is convinced Chimaev didn\u2019t even make the weight, but rather was done a favor by the New Jersey commissioner. None of these accusations have been confirmed or proven in any way.<\/p>\n
Dillashaw was asked for his opinion on what the biggest culprit was in regards to why Chimaev struggled so much.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, the water,\u201d Dillasahw said. \u201cI mean, if I could put it to one thing\u2026 like your body will shut down. Like you can\u2019t go and lose 10 pounds all at once and not drink enough water to tell your brain and your body to like, \u2018Hey, let\u2019s keep losing weight. Let\u2019s keep pushing water.\u2019 If you lose too much of it too fast in one sitting, your body will stop sweating. Yeah, you might only have three pounds to go, but guess what? That\u2019s gonna take you seven, eight hours because you\u2019re dying. You\u2019re straight up dying. Your body\u2019s telling you you\u2019re dying. \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cI know exactly how many ounces I\u2019m drinking every day during fight week. I know exactly when I\u2019m going to bed every single day. [Calavitta] knows what I\u2019m going wake up at. He knows how much I\u2019m going float at night and they didn\u2019t do it. He would tell them, like, \u2018Hey, there\u2019s so much water he should probably drink.\u2019 They didn\u2019t listen, right? And so he drank a quarter of the water he was supposed to drink and then lost four times the amount he was supposed to lose in one sitting and his body just gave out. And he did not want to make the weight.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wanted to give Strickland $1 million and say, \u2018Hey, take it. I can\u2019t make it, I\u2019m going to die.\u2019 And you forget this guy\u2019s got half a thyroid, right? His metabolism is half of a normal man. And so if you\u2019re not treating it the right way, you could kill him. And I really believe he was on the verge of death making that weight cut.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fight had a lot of heat and personal animosity heading in, and that led to the UFC providing extra security around the headliners and their teams in case they happened to run into each other outside of scheduled events.<\/p>\n
The two fighters touched gloves ahead of the fight, and squashed their beef when it was over. But the fight itself was incredibly close. Strickland ended up winning two of the judges on his side to become a two-time 185-pound titleholder.<\/p>\n
While Dillashaw agrees with most that it wasn\u2019t a robbery either way, he believes Chimaev did enough to win\u2014but it\u2019s not just about wins and losses. In Dillashaw\u2019s eyes, Chimaev was as compromised as can be. In fact, he alleges that things were so scary before the fight that he\u2019s quite stunned Chimaev was even able to stay competitive.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought he won at least three rounds with the fourth round even being close,\u201d Dillashaw said. \u201cIt was not a robbery. \u2026 I\u2019ve said that multiple times. It was a close fight due to Khamzat\u2019s underperformance \u2013 massive underperformance. And that\u2019s why Sean don\u2019t want to fight him again. Sean knows, like, \u2018Oh, I escaped this one. OK, cool.\u2019 Because he felt the first round and it would have been continuously that. But to know what he actually went through, like I just had a hour-long conversation the other night with Calavitta, because like from the outside looking in, without even me talking to Sam, I didn\u2019t even want to reach out to him yet because he was getting so much flack for all this bullshit. But I knew looking from the outside in that he wasn\u2019t eating the [right] foods. They were posting stuff and his nutritionist was posting stuff. I was like, \u2018Oh, Sam wouldn\u2019t have him eating that.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then I saw him sitting in the bathtub to cut weight. It was like, Sam wouldn\u2019t have him sitting in the bathtub to cut weight. \u2026 And then to hear the story of what actually was happening to him and him puking up green bile and just all the like crazy shit. He should not have made it to the fight. And to see how he performed still, Round 5, Round 4, he still had the better fight in cardio than in Strickland, and Strickland\u2019s supposed to be a cardio guy. Khamzat\u2019s the one going forward landing the bigger shots, right? So Sean won a fight going backwards, throwing a jab? I don\u2019t see it that way. But it makes me realize how tough Khamzat is to do as well as he did on almost dying before getting on that scale. Like I\u2019m saying, almost dying, like scary stories.\u201d<\/p>\n
As of now, Chimaev is pushing hard for a rematch, although UFC CEO Dana White revealed in the UFC 328 post-fight press conference that \u201cBorz\u201d told him he wanted to bump up to the light heavyweight division. Everything we\u2019ve seen from Chimaev after the fact trends in the direction of getting a second crack at Strickland, but nothing has been made official.<\/p>\n
Whether Chimaev gets another crack at Strickland is one thing, but Dillashaw wants to make sure the narrative about Chimaev\u2019s week and performance shifts in a different way.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople need to understand: What he pushed through to fight is impressive,\u201d Dillashaw said. \u201cAnd to do it with, again, the guy\u2019s got half a thyroid. Really. Do your research and understand what that does to your metabolism, and that\u2019s why weight cuts are hard for him. He just needs to do it the right way. And I think he needs to get his \u201885 pound title back before going back up, or even deciding to go 205. Because dude, he was only 16 pounds over showing up to fight week.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is easy. I show up 15 pounds over before, and I\u2019m a smaller guy. I show up 15 pounds above 135 on fight week when they do your weight check. But it\u2019s about the water displacement. And I know when I\u2019m 15 pounds over on Sunday going into that week, I\u2019m 15 pounds over and I\u2019m hydrated, drinking the water I\u2019m supposed to drink, I made weight. It\u2019s easy after that. Now it\u2019s just water displacement, and unfortunately they didn\u2019t do that. Again, you\u2019ve got to be really careful with these fighters out there. You got to do some research and really understand how guys are doing stuff. Because we\u2019re still in a sport that\u2019s pretty early and there\u2019s a lot of frauds out there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"T.J. Dillashaw was around Khamzat Chimaev for a good chunk of Chimaev\u2019s UFC 328 fight camp, and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":697984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396,14855],"class_list":["post-697983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news","tag-videos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=697983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/697984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}