Khabib Nurmagomedov, the UFC Hall of Famer who experienced multiple issues cutting weight during his storied MMA career recently criticized Khamzat Chimaev.
It was revealed by UFC President Dana White that Khamzat Chimaev was advised to discontinue cutting weight in the early morning hours on Friday, not long before he was scheduled to step on the scale for his UFC 279 main event with Nate Diaz. The weight miss not only put the main event in jeopardy but the entire event. Fortunately, UFC’s chief business officer Hunter Campbell was able to work with White, retooling a majority of the main card to save the event.
While speaking at an event hosted by the non-profit organization Human Appeal, Khabib Nurmagomedov suggested that the problem with Chimaev’s weight miss lies in ‘Borz’ not surrounding himself with other Muslims.
“If you are a Muslim, you should have good people around you – Muslims who can say: ‘Hey, don’t do this,’” Nurmagomedov said. “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. [They] will say: “Come back, do this.
“When you become famous and rich, when you gain power and [around you] there are no people who will give advice or you do not listen to them, then something will happen. You need good people, even if you don’t like it, you need them.”
Khabib Nurmagomedov’s Own History of Weight Cutting Issues
Of course, one shouldn’t need to point out the irony in Khabib Nurmagomedov criticizing another fighter for missing weight. ‘The Eagle’ has had his own struggles cutting weight during his undefeated career. It was discussed on more than one occasion that Nurmagomedov would significantly deplete his body of hydration and nutrients in order to make the 170-pound weight limit.
Ahead of his UFC 254 bout with Justin Gaethje, Nurmagomedov struggled to make the championship weight limit. ‘The Eagle’ was also hospitalized hours before being scheduled to step on the scale for UFC 209 in one of his many scheduled outings with Tony Ferguson that never came to fruition. Khabib Nurmagomedov’s weight-cutting struggles stretch as far back as UFC 160 in May 2013 when he failed to make weight for a scheduled bout with Abel Trujillo.
Given the chaos that Chimaev’s weight miss caused, it appears that his days of fighting at welterweight may be over according to Dana White.
“Yeah, it’s a problem, it’s a problem that he missed weight,” White told reporters at the UFC 279 post-fight press conference. “We have to look at it and figure it out, but what makes sense is for him to fight at (185). So we’ll see.”
1 thought on “Khabib Nurmagomedov Critical of Khamzat Chimaev’s UFC 279 Weight Miss Despite Own History of Weight Cutting Troubles”
This is a misquote and is being misquoted all over the media outlets. Watch the presser. This is what Nurmagomedov actually said:
“If you’re Muslim, you need good people around you, like good Muslim people, who can say “hey don’t do this. This is, like right now, I was watching, I was watching Khamzat Chimaev weigh in and I am like, I was following with what happened all this week, and I am looking at his team, and seeing no Muslim around him. And this is very bad because, if you are Muslim, you need good people, strong people around you to say ‘hey don’t do this,’ and like ‘do this,’ and when you become famous and rich you become strong and there is no people who will give you advice if you don’t listen in this kind of situation. You need good people even if you don’t like this, you need this.”
Zero reference to missing weight. It is hard to follow if you don’t understand his heavily accented English but if you reflect on the fact that you can’t understand what he is saying in a critical moment of his comment due to your inability to understand due to his English, what he actually said makes far more sense as it refers to the Chimaev’s conduct that led to the press conference that week being cancelled. Media outlets are imprinting what they want to hear instead of what was actually said so they fabricate an issue that doesn’t exist. When you think about how many times Nurmagomedov struggled and failed to make weight and even make it to the scale and the overall context of his comments here, it’s rather silly to think he was being critical of Chimaev missing weight rather than his conduct in flipping off the audience and taking zero responsibility about it.