It came as a complete surprise to everyone, when Chechen prospect Khamzat Chimaev seemingly announced his retirement on social media. However Dana White is telling everyone to slow down before they say things are over.
White has a tendency to act this way when a fighter that he does not want to retire, decides to call it quits. Nevertheless, the words coming from Khamzat’s Instagram seem to suggest that he is hanging uptake gloves.
This is certainly understandable too, when you look at the hardships he has been facing as a result of catching COVID-19. While most athletes can get past the virus fairly easily, he is having some serious and concerning lingering health effects, which no doubt caused him to make this decision.
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Dana White Says Khamzat Chimaev Is Going Nowhere
Despite what Khamzat Chimaev said on Instagram, Dana White is not convinced that he is retiring. In fact, he says the undefeated fighter is still on track to compete in June, with the help of the medical treatment the UFC is helping him get.
When asked about the situation, the UFC President said that Khamzat trained when he was not supposed to and it did not go well. This led to what Dana referred to as an emotional post that is ultimately not true.
When he got here, the doctors took care of him, and they put him on prednisone, which is a nasty f*cking steroid,” White told MMA Junkie.
“So he’s on prednisone, and he’s supposed to be taking this thing and chilling, relaxing, and letting himself recover. He went in and f*cking trained today, felt like sh*t, and got super emotional and posted that.
“He’s not supposed to be training, but you know, this guy’s a savage. He wants to fight like every f*cking weekend, and now he can’t even train, so he just got emotional and posted that, but he ain’t quitting.”
White went on to say that he had spoken directly with Khamzat, who he believes is still going to fight in a few months. The key thing is for him to follow doctor’s orders, in order to fully recover from these lingering effects.
“He was flown out here so that we could take care of him,” White said. “We get him taken care of. They got him on medication. He’s going to be fine, and he goes in and starts f*cking training. He’s not supposed to be training, and he’s super frustrated.
“He’s training when he’s supposed to be resting. He’s got to stay off, at least while he’s on this medication.”
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Now, as previously stated, Dana White does have a tendency to be hesitant in letting a fighter retire, if he does not think they are done. Hopefully he is not just having the same attitude as he had with Khabib Nurmagomedov’s retirement, and we will see this young fighter back in action soon.
