Is there anyone out there who can take the UFC middleweight title off Khamzat Chimaev now? If so, what\u2019s it going to take? And just how much criticism does the new champ actually deserve for the lack of entertainment value in his win at UFC 319?<\/p>\n
All that and more in this week\u2019s mailbag. To ask a question of your own, hit up @benfowlkesMMA<\/a>.<\/p>\n @Slefkaditis: Is there anyone to challenge this version of Khamzat Chimaev?<\/p>\n If this sport has taught us anything at all, it\u2019s that there\u2019s always someone. It might boil down to a question of how different styles match up, or just a matter of time until someone has seen enough of the champ in action to figure out the right game plan. Or, as always happens eventually, maybe he\u2019ll keep winning until age catches up with him (though he\u2019s only 31 now).<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n But the odds that someone will eventually figure you out tend to go up the more predictable you are. And Khamzat Chimaev, for all his many strengths, is pretty damn predictable.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why it surprised me that Dricus du Plessis didn\u2019t stop a single takedown through the first three rounds at UFC 319. If you\u2019ve watched any tape on Chimaev at all, you know he\u2019s probably going to shoot for a takedown in the first 10-15 seconds of the opening round \u2014 even if he has to do it out in space in the center of the cage. So how do you not have a better strategy for dealing with that? How are you not expecting it?<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Of course, it\u2019s easy for me to say, sitting here safe at my desk several days after the fight. Chimaev is obviously very, very good at what he does. But he also does more or less the same thing every time. Somebody is going to be able to counter that eventually. It just might take a while.<\/p>\n @NeedXtoseePosts: Do you still think Bobby Knuckles could of won if it went to Round 3 – 5.<\/p>\n The best thing about my theory that Robert Whittaker could have beaten Chimaev if he\u2019d only survived the first round is that it\u2019s pretty much unfalsifiable now. Because, as we know, he didn\u2019t make it out of that round. Instead he got his dental work all messed up<\/a> and had to tap less than four minutes in. But if he hadn\u2019t\u2026?<\/p>\n The concept this is based on is that Chimaev starts fast and fades, which didn\u2019t really happen so much at UFC 319. But that\u2019s not to say it didn\u2019t happen at all. Du Plessis\u2019 best round was the fifth round (though he still lost that round too). Chimaev\u2019s takedown success rate and control time both declined in the fourth and fifth rounds. There\u2019s still reason to think an opponent could lose early and still win late against the new champ.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The trouble is, “DDP” didn\u2019t do much of anything in those first three rounds, so Chimaev didn\u2019t have to exert much energy while dominating him. While I still think there\u2019s a chance that his style will wear him out in five-round fights, you\u2019ve got to make him work harder in those first couple rounds in order to exploit that. All du Plessis did was survive. Which, in fairness, is more than most. But it was still nowhere near enough.<\/p>\n @shadore66: What are some of the biggest “showcase fight” gone wrong and where does than Kai Asakura tapping to Tim Elliott rank? Tim is 38, no fights since 2023, this was his last fight on an expiring contract, and he hasn’t been resigned.<\/p>\n I still think the ultimate showcase gone wrong was when Mirko Cro Cop debuted in the UFC against Gabriel Gonzaga. The UFC was bringing him over from PRIDE and clearly wanted Cro Cop to fight Randy Couture for the heavyweight title. But maybe there was some concern that North American audiences didn\u2019t know Cro Cop well enough yet, so fine, let\u2019s have him head-kick Gonzaga to juice the pay-per-view buys when he meets Couture in his next fight.<\/p>\n Except then the opposite happened. Gonzaga went out there and did Cro Cop stuff to Cro Cop himself<\/a>. So then Gonzaga got the fight against Couture, which was not exactly a blockbuster, and the UFC held back on the post-fight discretionary bonus that Couture was used to getting, which in turn led to him trying to leave the UFC for a dream fight with Fedor Emelianenko.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Legal battles ensued. Over a year passed before Couture finally came back into the fold and defended the heavyweight title again. And maybe none of it would have happened if we\u2019d just skipped straight to Couture vs. Cro Cop in the first place.<\/p>\n @lyingawakezzz: How badly has Aaron Pico\u2019s career been mismanaged? Does he ever fight for a title?<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know how much we can blame mismanagement at this point. Early on? Maybe. He came in with such hype that it was hard to know what to do with him. If he\u2019s 2-0 and crushes another 2-0 guy, it looks like a joke. But then when he got overmatched too early, it got him beat. Those are always tough situations to handle.<\/p>\n But now he\u2019s 28 years old and has been in this sport for eight years. He was one of the most anticipated Bellator imports. Expectations were always going to be high for him in the UFC, and he was going to have to hit the ground running. He got knocked out by a very tough opponent in Lerone Murphy<\/a>, who scouted him well and had a technique he knew would work against Pico\u2019s predictable and overly aggressive attack. That\u2019s not poor management. That\u2019s poor execution.<\/p>\n @StaleSonnen: Why did I think the main event was gonna actually be a fun fight to watch? I really should have known better<\/p>\n How many boring fights has Chimaev had in his career? I\u2019d say it\u2019s this one and the majority decision win over Kamaru Usman. That\u2019s two duds (that he still won) in 15 fights, which is pretty good.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Also, just generally I think we ought to give Chimaev a little bit of a break here. This was his first title fight, the one he absolutely had to win to justify all that hype. If you found yourself in a fight like that, and if you realized early in the first round that you had an easy path to victory available to you, would you feel obligated to take more risks for the sake of other people\u2019s entertainment?<\/p>\n I think it felt lackluster mostly because Chimaev was clearly so dominant that we assumed he could have done more. You control a guy that thoroughly, it makes us think you\u2019re dragging it out by not just cranking up the volume and putting him away. But you saw how “DDP” was dangerous even in the final round when given an opening. Job one for Chimaev was to win and become champ. He did that. I don\u2019t blame him too much for deprioritizing our excitement \u2014 at least this time.<\/p>\n @jmprobus: RDR or Fluffy? Who has a better chance at taking out The Wolf and why?<\/p>\n One thing both Reinier de Ridder and Anthony Hernandez have in common is great ground games \u2014 but also ground games that are different from what we\u2019ve seen Chimaev face. If you can\u2019t stop that guy\u2019s takedowns, the next best thing is to have sweeps and submissions to threaten him with once you inevitably end up on the mat with him.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n If I have to chose one, I think “RDR” might have the better chance. He\u2019s a big dude for the weight class, but also doesn\u2019t rely on being able to bully people with strength all the time. Whether he could take the title off Chimaev or not, I think it\u2019d be fun to watch him try.<\/p>\n @ggooglyboogly: Not a question, just here to say that seeing Frankie Edgar sign on to fight bareknuckle knowing how his UFC career ended made me sad.<\/p>\n Agreed. I don\u2019t like it. And if I were BKFC, I\u2019d try to be at least a little conscious of the possibility that if I sign the wrong UFC retirees \u2014 in other words, the ones we wanted to see stay retired rather than go maim themselves in bare-knuckle boxing \u2014 it could turn fans against the promotion on some level. I just have no desire to see something bad happen to Frankie Edgar at this point<\/a>.<\/p>\n @ShinyaAokiplata: Carlos Prates is awesome but probably gonna struggle to reach champion status. How would you recommend he promote himself to be at least as popular as Cowboy Cerrone used to be<\/p>\n It probably says something about this sport that his love of cigarettes seems to be doing a lot of marketing work for him. Weird, I know. But that\u2019s MMA. It just goes to show how far you can go with a gimmick \u2014 almost any gimmick \u2014 as long as it feels genuine. You just need that one little thing to make us remember you as an individual and not just another faceless UFC fighter. I kind of think Prates has that. Now he just needs to win the big fights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Is there anyone out there who can take the UFC middleweight title off Khamzat Chimaev now? 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