Fair or not, the internet was not impressed with Khamzat Chimaev’s decision to shoot for a takedown rather than touch gloves with Kevin Holland to start their fight.
Khamzat Chimaev really did go from hero to zero after blowing his UFC 279 weigh-in so badly the main card had to be rebuilt around his 7.5 pound screw up. He followed that up with some unrepentant tweets and a few not so subtle middle fingers. By the time Saturday rolled around all of Las Vegas seemed to be booing “Borz.”
That newfound hate may be why people were so quick to accuse Chimaev of pulling a cheap stunt to start his fight against Kevin Holland. The dominating Chechen fighter ignored an offered glove touch from “Trailblazer,” shooting on his opponent immediately.
Depending on how you feel about Khamzat, you could have different reactions, as boiled down by these fan tweets. Here’s one:
Khamzat Chimaev doing the fake glove touch is so dirty #ufc279 #ufc #mma pic.twitter.com/204qrNlzWP
— MidwestVillain (@midwestvillano) September 11, 2022
And here’s the other:
As I said, he didn’t not walk out with his hand raised, and holland should never expect a touch. Fast twitching before level change is not a glove touch, something someone who has been in a cage should understand pic.twitter.com/CWn4yHqjjE
— Drizzle (@r9kBOD) September 11, 2022
It’s a real Zapruder situation, with some fans insisting it looks like Khamzat fakes a glove touch before shooting his shot. Others say it was just a general feint, and Chimaev already touched gloves with Holland when the referee brought them to the middle of the cage, anyway.
Khamzat himself seemed surprised by the accusation.
“What?” a visibly confused Chimaev said when asked about the situation. “I don’t understand, how we gonna see? I want to take off his head, I’m gonna watch his hands? I was watching his head. I don’t know, always people find some funny things to say. They want to go back, we’ll go back and do it over again.”
“I said to [Holland] as well, he’s young guy, I’m young guy, maybe we’ll meet again. Otherwise he can come down to Sweden and I’ll help him you know?”
Holland himself made no mention of the controversy, which led to him getting D’arce choked just two minutes into their co-main event fight (watch the finish here). So what do you think, Maniacs? Is Khamzat Chimaev so good people are just looking for reasons to hate on him? Or did he do Kevin Holland dirty shooting off Holland’s offer of a starting glove touch?