Aspinall<\/a> because of the grappling exchanges.<\/p>\nOn his YouTube channel, the heavyweight explained what he would have done if he were in the position of Du Plessis.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cIf I was DDP, I\u2019d be trying to look to put Khamzat on the back foot, but I would imagine now he\u2019s starting to get tired. Both guys will be relatively tired, but DDP\u2019s been carrying him for three rounds, so that\u2019s more exhausting for DDP.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d definitely be trying to get him on the back foot, keep him away from me, show him that I\u2019m controlling the range here. He\u2019s not just going to shoot in and take me down.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut easier said than done when you\u2019re fighting a guy like Khamzat. Khamzat is absolutely dominating him.\u201d<\/p>\n
His record-breaking landed strikes and over 20 minutes of control time made it one of the most dominant five-round performances by a challenger in a title fight.<\/p>\n
Britain\u2019s own provided his overall thoughts on the fight and acknowledged fan criticism of too much grappling, which was blasted by one UFC legend.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it was going to be a more exciting fight, first of all, but I love grappling anyway, so I enjoyed it. But I know there\u2019s a lot of fans who probably think it\u2019s like hugging him or whatever, but I personally really enjoyed it. Just complete domination from Khamzat,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was just one way of traffic for the full five rounds. Got a bit hairy in the last minute. DDP put some shots on him, but just didn\u2019t have enough left in the tank, I don\u2019t think, to do much damage. So, congratulations to Khamzat and team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former Dricus Du Plessis opponent Israel Adesanya believes Khamzat Chimaev is a \u2018mess to deal with\u2019<\/p>\n
This win also drew the attention of a former opponent of the South African in ex-middleweight king Israel Adesanya.<\/p>\n
The 36-year-old lost to Du Plessis by submission in August last year, which has been part of a three-fight losing streak in the UFC.<\/p>\n
On his Stylebender YouTube channel, he picked out the change in Chimaev\u2019s game that makes him a mess to fight in the future.<\/p>\n
Adesanya said: \u201cHe prepared very well. His gas tank held up. Not what I expected, but I\u2019m glad he fixed his cardio, or improved his cardio to the point where he can go five rounds and just rag doll people. That\u2019s a mess to deal with.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe didn\u2019t even slow down. He slowed down DDP. He slowed him down, which is very impressive. The division is in good hands.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is one of the most talent-rich divisions in the organisation currently, and with fighters like Adesanya still competing within the rankings, Khamzat could have a very entertaining run with the belt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Aspinall watched the UFC 319 event on Saturday and was impressed by the winner of the main…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77533,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,20207,786,4120,785,85,799,787],"class_list":["post-77532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-dricus-du-plessis","tag-fighting","tag-khamzat-chimaev","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-tom-aspinall","tag-ufc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77532","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=77532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Khamzat](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-2230536678-1024x683.jpg\")
Photo by Geoff Stellfox\/Getty Images<\/p>\n