Khamzat Chimaev is one of the most dangerous fighters currently fighting in the UFC. The Swede is scheduled to face off against Gilbert Burns, who is currently ranked #2 in the UFC’s Welterweight contender rankings.
The “Borz” has completely obliterated all of his competition inside the octagon. However, his goal is to capture the Welterweight gold. And at the end of the road, he has to face Kamaru Usman, the 170-pounds kingpin for that.
Chimaev is infamous for being too tough on his training partners. There are some crazy stories involving Khamzat.
There was a story a few years ago about how he knocked, former UFC middleweight, Darren Stewart’s teeth out during training.
Few months ago, he went to Phuket to train at Tiger Muay Thai in order to hone his striking skills. He said that he was so tough in his sparring sessions that nobody wanted to spar with him.
“Here at Tiger I’ve had some sparring sessions and the guys don’t want to spar me again.”
The British UFC fighter Darren Till is currently training with the ‘Borz’at the Allstar Training Center in Stockholm, Sweden.
The duo has become such good friends that they train vigorously, shop, and watch UFC PPVs together. Till also said similar things about their ruthless training and how he gets mauled by Khamzat every time.
Anthony Smith also talked about how he’d heard about Khamzat Chimaev before he was even in the UFC. He said that Chimaev developed a reputation for bullying men two weight classes above him in the gym.
“I remember hearing his name, some young kid that’s rag dolling Ilir Latifi and [Alexander] Gustafsson down in Sweden.” Smith said on Michael Bisping’s Believe You Me podcast.
Alexander Gustafsson on work ethics of Khamzat Chimaev
UFC light heavyweight Alexander Gustafsson praised the work ethics of Khamzat.
“He’s doing five sessions a day, at least. In my prime, when I fought Jon [Jones] and those guys back in the day, I did three sessions a day and I did, like, 20 rounds every sparring [session]. My conditioning was crazy. But this guy, he outworks me. He doesn’t get tired.”
He said the 27-year-old fighter gives him a good incentive to practice defense.
“I’m not kidding. He hits hard. He has this thing that he’s fast, and he has very good precision, so he doesn’t need a lot of power to just knock people out, because he knows what he’s aiming at, and he hits every time.
“I’ve play-sparred with lot of guys, you’re just laughing and joking around and having a good time. But this guy, when he comes to spar, he comes to spar. It doesn’t matter if it’s me or another guy, he just goes.”