What’s next for new UFC middleweight champ Khamzat Chimaev
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Belal Muhammad says if there’s someone to blame for UFC 319 being boring, it’s the former champion Dricus du Plessis. This past Saturday, du Plessis squared off with Khamzat Chimaev in the main event of UFC 319 with the middleweight title on the line.
While speaking in a video posted to Daniel Cormier’s YouTube channel, coach Alan Nascimento recalled Du Plessis and his coach claiming they welcomed wrestling battles. Chimaev’s trained suggested that whoever was in charge of preparing the South African on the ground should be fired.
The main event of UFC Vancouver in October will pit Reinier de Ridder against Anthony “Fluffy” Hernandez, potentially offering a clue to Khamzat Chimaev ’s first challenger for the middleweight title.
Ever since his 2020 UFC debut, when he earned a trio of dominant victories in a stretch of just 65 days, Khamzat Chimaev has been the promotion's greatest enigma as a fighter who is capable of magic in one performance only to look surprisingly human in his next amid a somewhat consistent stretch of inactivity.