Midnight Mania: Watch Mysteriously Healthy Khamzat SMESH Russian Influencer

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Welcome to Midnight Mania!

Social media influencers are 0-2 against ranked Middleweights in 2024.

Earlier this year, former champion Sean Strickland made headlines for bloodying Sneako in a UFC Performance Institute sparring session. In the video above, rising contender Khamzat Chimaev is following his lead. Chimaev takes on Russian YouTuber Litvan, whose goal was to survive a minute in the cage with “Borz.” Predictably, it didn’t go too well, and the influencer was left curled up in agony on the canvas in short fashion.

That’s all well and good, but … wasn’t Khamzat deathly ill just a few weeks ago? Fans were quick to question the timeline on social media, wondering why Khamzat was beating up YouTubers when he couldn’t meet Robert Whittaker in the Octagon. The unfortunate answer is that it’s tough to tell when exactly this was filmed, only that Litvan released a video hyping up the sparring session about two weeks ago.

One way or another, it’s bad optics.

Khamzat Chimaev’s career is in a strange place. “Borz” is clearly very talented, but after an electric start to his UFC career, his activity has fallen off a cliff. He’s fought just four times in the last four years and only once at Middleweight, which is a hard way to build momentum and lock down a 185-pound title shot. Something keeps going wrong at the last second, and now his career is stalling.

At least he’s healthy enough for Crypto scams.

Insomnia

Israel Adesanya is putting in the work ahead of his return to action against Dricus Du Plessis.

Ignacio Bahamondes vs. Manuel Torres is awesome on several levels. Two massive and talented Lightweight prospects who will try to destroy one another!

Any jiu-jitsu gym worth its salt should be teaching takedowns in addition to rolling on the floor.

Dustin Poirier is feeling sassy this week.

Rafael dos Anjos’ jiu-jitsu is excellent and probably underappreciated because he’s been controlled by some of the best wrestlers of the last decade.

Betting on the UFC Denver main event? Take this into consideration …

A classic clip of Lightweight familial violence.

Slips, rips, and KO clips

There will always be a place for bathroom fistfights in this column. Also, that headbutt out of the clinch was kind of clean …

15 minutes of action and scrambles between two OGs!

Caught on one leg with a powerful left hook:

Random Land

An interesting strategy.

Midnight Music: Hip-hop, 1994

Sleep well Maniacs! More martial arts madness is always on the way.