:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/67109041/1258273663.jpg.0.jpg)
Khamzat Chimaev resides in Stockholm, Sweden, and is originally from the Russian republic of Chechnya. But that’s all pointless as his home is wherever he tells you his home is after one of the most impressive debuts in UFC history over the last 10 days on Fight Island.
The welterweight is part of Sweden’s Allstars Training Center with fighters such as Alexander Gustafsson and others, and he came to Abu Dhabi to take on John Phillips in a middleweight bout on July 15th. Middleweight has an upper limit of 170 lbs.
He landed 124 punches, and his opponent two. Of the 372 seconds of fight time before the TKO stoppage across two rounds, Chimaev was in body control of his opponent for 354 of them. It was a credit to Phillips he even came out for the second round.
But what makes it even more impressive is he decided to immediately accept another fight, which was scheduled for July 25th, just 10 days later against Rhys McKee. And this time he would fight at welterweight, which has an upper limit of 155 lbs.
In that bout this evening, Chimaev landed 68 punches in 189 seconds before the fight was stopped, and McKee zero. Again, in an MMA cage, his opponent landed zero (0) punches. Chimaev also had full body control of his opponent for all but 10 seconds of the fight.
Brutal trabajo de @kchimaev quien ha dominado desde el principio! #UFCFightIsland3 pic.twitter.com/6AeTKb5Cfl
— ufcespanol (@UFCEspanol) July 26, 2020
With his victory, Khamzat Chimaev won a UFC fight with less of a break between fights than any other mixed martial artist in the promotion’s modern history. And he did it in the least amount of time, because he just made his UFC debut 10 days ago. And he did it in two different weight classes.
What we’re saying is if you’re between 155 and 170 pounds and Dana White asks you to fight Khamzat Chimaev, you may want to consider other options. Because the sport has likely found its next big star.