{"id":82841,"date":"2025-08-20T16:28:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T16:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/82841\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T16:28:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T16:28:07","slug":"numbers-that-explain-khamzat-chimaevs-ufc-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/82841\/","title":{"rendered":"Numbers that explain Khamzat Chimaev’s UFC championship"},"content":{"rendered":"

Khamzat Chimaev<\/a> burst onto the UFC scene in the summer of 2020, finishing his first three opponents in barely two months with thrashing performances. He continued to pile up impressive numbers<\/a>, and even after injuries, illnesses and other factors slowed his roll<\/a>, he remained undefeated and eventually made it to a title fight at last Saturday’s UFC 319.<\/p>\n

Once again, Chimaev was dominant<\/a>, seizing the UFC middleweight championship from Dricus Du Plessis<\/a>. Once again, Chimaev put up big numbers.<\/p>\n

How big? Here are some numbers from one of the most lopsided fights in UFC history, courtesy of ESPN Research and UFC Stats.<\/p>\n

529 strikes landed: Chimaev smashed the record for most strikes landed in a UFC fight previously held by Max Holloway<\/a>, who landed 447 in his 2021 bout with Calvin Kattar<\/a>. The previous record for strikes in a UFC title fight was 336 by Kamaru Usman<\/a> in his 2019 win over Tyron Woodley<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Picks<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

1 Related<\/p>\n

37 to 13 in significant strikes: Although Chimaev landed 529 total strikes, only 37 were designated significant, which is defined as a blow with enough power to cause damage or movement in an opponent. Chimaev absorbed only 45 total strikes from Du Plessis, 13 of which were deemed significant.<\/p>\n

1 significant strike: In Round 1, Chimaev had a 131-3 advantage in total strikes but was credited with only one significant strike. Du Plessis did not land a significant strike until the third round.<\/p>\n

In nine UFC fights prior, Dricus Du Plessis, left, had allowed three total takedowns. Khamzat Chimaev, right, landed 12 against him.\u00a0Kamil Krzaczynski\/Imagn Images<\/p>\n

12 takedowns: Chimaev executed the second-most takedowns in a UFC middleweight fight (Makhmud Muradov<\/a> had 13 against Bryan Barberena<\/a> in 2023). Chimaev’s total, which came on 17 attempts, is tied for the third-most in a UFC title fight and the most since Demetrious Johnson<\/a> landed 14 in a flyweight title bout in 2015. In Du Plessis’ nine previous UFC fights, his opponents had landed a total of three takedowns.<\/p>\n

21 minutes, 40 seconds of control time: Chimaev controlled Du Plessis on the canvas for 87% of the 25-minute fight. In four of the five rounds, he had more than four minutes of ground control time.<\/p>\n

0 submission tries: Despite being on top of Du Plessis for nearly the entire fight, Chimaev wasn’t credited with a submission attempt. Du Plessis notched a submission attempt in less than a minute of control time.<\/p>\n

Khamzat Chimaev, right, was in control for nearly 90% of his fight against Dricus Du Plessis, left.\u00a0Kamil Krzaczynski\/Imagn Images<\/p>\n

3 undefeated middleweight title-holders: Chimaev, at 15-0, joins Israel Adesanya<\/a> (18-0 after dethroning Robert Whittaker<\/a> in 2019) and Chris Weidman<\/a> (10-0 after knocking out Anderson Silva<\/a> in 2013) as the only 185-pounders to win UFC titles while undefeated. Chimaev and Ilia Topuria<\/a> are the only current undefeated UFC champions.<\/p>\n

9 straight UFC wins: Chimaev is tied for the third-longest active winning streak in the Octagon, behind Islam Makhachev<\/a> (15) and Merab Dvalishvili<\/a> (13).<\/p>\n

1 champion: Chimaev is the first fighter representing the United Arab Emirates to win a UFC title. He was born in the Chechen Republic in Russia and lived in Sweden for 10 years before moving to the UAE in 2023 and gaining citizenship in January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Khamzat Chimaev burst onto the UFC scene in the summer of 2020, finishing his first three opponents in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":["post-82841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82841","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=82841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}