One Night with Steiny<\/a> podcast. \u201cTo be honest, I don\u2019t see anybody lasting as long as DDP did. Like DDP survived, which was impressive in itself. Khamzat is a finisher. He\u2019s a killer.\u201d<\/p>\nIf there was a knock on Chimaev\u2019s performance, it\u2019s that he didn\u2019t get a stoppage despite repeated takedowns and constant ground control that kept him ahead of du Plessis at every turn.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Malley admits it might be more of the same now that Chimaev is champion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just don\u2019t see that many exciting fights in the future \u2026 they\u2019ll be big fights because he\u2019s a star,\u201d O\u2019Malley said. \u201cHe\u2019s a superstar. He\u2019s exciting. But it\u2019s just like who do you give that guy?\u201d<\/p>\n
There are two fights and four potential opponents all vying for that spot in marquee middleweight fights scheduled over the next two months.<\/p>\n
In September, Nassourdine Imavov takes on Caio Borralho in the UFC Paris main event while Reinier de Ridder looks to keep his undefeated UFC run in tact when he clashes with Anthony \u201cFluffy\u201d Hernandez in October at UFC Vancouver.<\/p>\n
UFC CEO Dana White has said the most impressive winner out of those two fights likely ends up in a position to battle Chimaev for the middleweight title.<\/p>\n
Whoever gets that shot is going to have to deal with Chimaev\u2019s wrestling, which is arguably one of the greatest weapons existing in the sport today.<\/p>\n
That grappling heavy style is difficult to deal with, but O\u2019Malley admits that there are ways to beat wrestlers, which is why he doesn\u2019t agree with the notion that those overpowering grapplers are just taking the sport by storm right now.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will probably go in waves like it does,\u201d O\u2019Malley said. \u201cFor a while it was a bunch of strikers when [Israel Adesanya] was champ. I was champ. Who else was champ at that time? Max Holloway, it goes in waves. There\u2019s strikers and grapplers but the grapplers are getting pretty powerful.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, it\u2019s still an entertainment business and the little dorks will get weeded out sometimes. When they\u2019re that good, they\u2019re undeniable. They\u2019re going to become champ.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Khamzat Chimaev was a heavy favorite going into his first title fight opportunity against Dricus du Plessis at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,82,640,702],"class_list":["post-98747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98747","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=98747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}