Former undisputed UFC lightweight titleholder, Khabib Nurmagomedov has questioned the reasoning behind the recent weight miss of scheduled UFC 270 headliner, Khamzat Chimaev last weekend – after the Chechen-born contender missed weight by a whopping seven and a half pounds for his welterweight fight against Nate Diaz.
Scheduled to headline UFC 279 last weekend in ‘Sin City’, Chimaev was demoted to the event’s co-headliner against welterweight contender, Kevin Holland – landing at a catchweight bout of 180lbs after he weighed in at 178.5lbs for a fight against Diaz.
Maintaining his undefeated record against Holland on just a day’s notice, Chimaev quickly scored a takedown against the Riverside striker, before continually dragging him to the canvas during numerous scrambles.
Wrapping up a taut D’Arce choke eventually, Khamzat Chimaev, who currently sits at #3 in the official welterweight rankings, has been tipped to likely make a middleweight division move before the end of this year by his head coach, Andreas Michael.
Khabib Nurmagomedov shares his thoughts on Khamzat Chimaev’s glaring weight miss
Weighing in on Chimaev’s dubious weight miss for UFC 279, Khabib questioned the characters the AllStars MMA staple surrounds himself with, calling for him to knit Muslim influences into his group.
“If you are a Muslim, you should have good people around you – Muslim who can say, ‘Hey, don’t do this,” Khabib Nurmagomedov said at a Human Appeal event recently. “I recently watched the weigh-in of Khamzat Chimaev. I followed what was happening with his weight and looked at his team. There are no Muslims around him and this is very bad. Because if you are a Muslim, you need good, strong people around you. [Who] will say, ‘Come back, do this.’”
“When you become rich and famous, when you gain power and [around you] there are no people who will give advice or you do not listen to them,” Khabib Nurmagomedov explained. “Then something will happen. You need good people, even if you don’t like it, you need them.” (Transcribed by Bloody Elbow)