{"id":81948,"date":"2025-08-19T19:42:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T19:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/81948\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T19:42:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T19:42:11","slug":"khamzat-chimaevs-bitter-enemy-warns-he-could-kill-mma-if-he-fights-like-he-did-at-ufc-319-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/81948\/","title":{"rendered":"Khamzat Chimaev’s bitter enemy warns he could ‘kill’ MMA if he fights like he did at UFC 319 again"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Khamzat Chimaev\u2019s middleweight rival thinks his UFC 319 performance was so bad that the sport of mixed martial arts is in danger.<\/p>\n

Chimaev<\/a> emerged victorious from this past Saturday\u2019s pay-per-view main event, and the result was rarely in doubt throughout the one-sided fight.<\/p>\n

Dricus du Plessis was dominated by Chimaev<\/a> for 25 minutes, as \u2018Borz\u2019 brought his middleweight title reign and undefeated UFC run to an end.<\/p>\n

A new era is underway at 185 pounds off the back of Chimaev\u2019s record-breaking show of dominance<\/a>, but not everyone has reacted with praise. And one of the Chechen star\u2019s biggest rivals made a dramatic assessment of the impact the new champion\u2019s style could have.<\/p>\n

Paulo Costa slams Khamzat Chimaev\u2019s \u2018business-killing\u2019 UFC 319 win<\/p>\n

The words Chimaev and \u201cboring\u201d have not come hand in hand at all since the 31-year-old arrived in the UFC. The undefeated phenom has consistently torn through his opposition, most recently when Chimaev violently submitted Robert Whittaker<\/a> in one round to secure his title shot.<\/p>\n

But UFC 319 was a different story, as \u2018Borz\u2019 racked up over 21 minutes of control time while rarely pushing for a finish during the five-round headliner at United Center.<\/p>\n

Chimaev\u2019s strategy against Du Plessis has been criticized<\/a> by some, but not many have gone as far the champ\u2019s longtime enemy, Paulo Costa, with their reactions.<\/p>\n

During an appearance on The Ariel Helwani Show, the Brazilian boldly claimed that Chimaev could \u201ckill\u201d MMA if he repeats the manner in which he won on August 16.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a show. This is entertainment,\u201d Costa said. \u201cThis kind of fight, and fighter, has a lot of potential to kill this business.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis surprised me after, because at the press conference after the fight, Dana (White) was (saying), \u2018OK, he did amazing.\u2019 No, he didn\u2019t, man.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe did horrible. This is horrible for the watchers,\u201d Costa continued. \u201cThis is not good. People will watch something else. They will not watch these guys hugging each other for 25 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paulo Costa knows how to \u2018handle\u2019 Khamzat Chimaev<\/p>\n

Should he earn an opportunity at the newly crowned champion down the line, \u2018Borrachinha\u2019 insists he will offer much more resistance than Du Plessis did in Chicago.<\/p>\n

Costa doesn\u2019t think Chimaev can hold him down<\/a>, a prediction that the Brazilian fighter backed up by referencing his successful anti-wrestling display against Yoel Romero back in 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe dominated Dricus, but he could not do the same thing that he used to do against welterweights,\u201d Costa told Helwani. \u201cLike, maul the guys, finish the guys.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he faces a real middleweight, a really heavy middleweight, he\u2019s going to have some problems.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know how to handle these guys,\u201d Costa continued. \u201cRemember my fight against Romero? Romero is a high-level wrestler and very good also. He couldn\u2019t put me down. He tried like four or five times.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I fight Khamzat, the same gonna happen. He could not hold me down. Even if he took me down. I don\u2019t think I\u2019m gonna stay on my feet the whole time against him. I think he can put me down, but he will not keep me there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Khamzat Chimaev\u2019s middleweight rival thinks his UFC 319 performance was so bad that the sport of mixed martial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,5899,21867,638,7905,82,38068],"class_list":["post-81948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-khamzat-chimaev","tag-middleweight","tag-mma","tag-paulo-costa","tag-sports","tag-ufc-319"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}