Media Chimaev grappling coach interview

[Human Bass]

For the brazilian channel Sexto Round



Cliff notes

- Chimaev struggled a lot with grappling in the beginning, he could wrestle but would get choked all the time, personally asked for Finfou help to fix that .

- Caio Borralho is a great training patner. Finfou would like that Khamzat to train more times with him, but not possible anymore for obvious reasons. And they know what Caio knows.

- The original gameplan against Whittaker was to go easy and pace himself. But Chimaev felt confident and decide to go balls to the walls.

- Chimaev was star struck with the sudden fame. People would call him to take part in brawls, also drove and crashed a car even without license. Finfou had to talk a lot of sense into him

- Agrees with Khabib that Chimaev has solid boxing and doesnt need to rush. Must be prepared for all scenarios since DDP is dangerous with both subs and KOs.

 

[usernamee]

"The original gameplan against Whittaker was to go easy and pace himself. But Chimaev felt confident and decide to go balls to the walls."

Well it's great to hear that he still doesn't care about gameplans lol.

Although I will say he didn't look quite as frantic as he usually does vs Whittaker, he focused more on riding and having Whittaker carry his weight rather than spazzing out completely.

 

[fortheo]

What does "and they know what caio knows"..... even mean?

 

[Bradillac]

I don’t really agree that striking will help him pace himself. He gassed badly in a striking match against Burns, and DDP will undoubtedly push the pace on the feet if Chimaev doesn’t.

 

[wrb]

What does "and they know what caio knows"..... even mean?

I think it means they know his weaknesses OR it means they know they might fight in the future. Maybe.. I just read the text and did not watch the video

 

[Left Hook Lacy]

What does "and they know what caio knows"..... even mean?

I think that Caio was at least very, very competitive with him in the BJJ sessions. Caio kinda hinted at that in the Rampage podcast, too, that he doesn't feel that threatend by Chimaevs pure grappling.

 

[Tokoloko]

I think it means they know his weaknesses OR it means they know they might fight in the future. Maybe.. I just read the text and did not watch the video

Everytime when he goes for TD he gives out "free" neck for guillotine....everytime, and he is getting finished like this often during sparrings recording to people which used to spar him. Even kickboxer guillotined him during sparring when he knew this... "secret"

 

[Human Bass]

What does "and they know what caio knows"..... even mean?

Caio said he knows how to possibly deal with Chimaev since they trained together. Finfou and Chimaev know what Caio possible gameplan is and they know how to counter the counter, 4d chess bro.

 

[jeff7b9]

"The original gameplan against Whittaker was to go easy and pace himself. But Chimaev felt confident and decide to go balls to the walls."

Well it's great to hear that he still doesn't care about gameplans lol.

Although I will say he didn't look quite as frantic as he usually does vs Whittaker, he focused more on riding and having Whittaker carry his weight rather than spazzing out completely.

The way he handled the Nate Diaz trainwreck where he missed weight by 8 pounds was very telling.




"You came in way over weight, what was that about?"

"I don't care about that shit."


This is a very athletic adolescent in a man's body who has yet to learn about accountability & accepting responsibility for one's actions and mistakes.

__________________

He may win in spite of this.
He is an absolute freak and in the running for the most gifted fighter we have seen in a long time maybe ever.

But he has not demonstrated that he can learn from his mistakes and since he has yet to face any significant repercussions there is no reason to expect any self reflection or addressing of potential issues.

 

[BEATDOWNS]

I highly doubt he is getting good training at Jacksons facility whatever it is. lol They don't seem like the type to take anything seriously.

 

[shunyata]

"The original gameplan against Whittaker was to go easy and pace himself. But Chimaev felt confident and decide to go balls to the walls."

Well it's great to hear that he still doesn't care about gameplans lol.

Although I will say he didn't look quite as frantic as he usually does vs Whittaker, he focused more on riding and having Whittaker carry his weight rather than spazzing out completely.

That's just...... so Khamzat.

Never change Borz, never change.

 

[mkess101]

I think that Caio was at least very, very competitive with him in the BJJ sessions. Caio kinda hinted at that in the Rampage podcast, too, that he doesn't feel that threatend by Chimaevs pure grappling.

Take out gnp and I have little doubt Caio (and others) can hang with Khamzat in pure grappling. His grappling game is elite for MMA because he incorporates damaging gnp and blends it into his advance position/sub game. Pick your poison: defend yourself from getting smashed in the face or allow him to advance and get to a dominant spot and threaten with subs.

 

[rjmbrd]

Take out gnp and I have little doubt Caio (and others) can hang with Khamzat in pure grappling. His grappling game is elite for MMA because he incorporates damaging gnp and blends it into his advance position/sub game. Pick your poison: defend yourself from getting smashed in the face or allow him to advance and get to a dominant spot and threaten with subs.

I mean, the 3 ranked guys he fought that wasn't the case.

He legitimately was afraid of Burns on the ground and backed out of those exchanges. He would later comment he felt uncomfortable. I cannot stress enough how cartoonish the size difference was between these two guys.

Then he fights Usman, who's never fought at middleweight, coming off back to back losses, flying across the world to fight on 1 weeks nice. He got back packed for a round, took virtually zero damage. Khamzat started getting stuffed in the next round.

Whittaker is the closest, but he got back packed and took little damage. A preexisting injury Whittaker had in his gum bone from getting cracked by DDP causes a freak end to the fight, not a submission.

I agree Khamzat is going to make un-ranked opponents like Holland look awful.

Caio is much, much bigger and more physical than guys the size of Burns and Usman. It'll be interesting to see how these fights go.

 

[mkess101]

I mean, the 3 ranked guys he fought that wasn't the case.

He legitimately was afraid of Burns on the ground and backed out of those exchanges. He would later comment he felt uncomfortable. I cannot stress enough how cartoonish the size difference was between these two guys.

Then he fights Usman, who's never fought at middleweight, coming off back to back losses, flying across the world to fight on 1 weeks nice. He got back packed for a round, took virtually zero damage. Khamzat started getting stuffed in the next round.

Whittaker is the closest, but he got back packed and took little damage. A preexisting injury Whittaker had in his gum bone from getting cracked by DDP causes a freak end to the fight, not a submission.

I agree Khamzat is going to make un-ranked opponents like Holland look awful.

Caio is much, much bigger and more physical than guys the size of Burns and Usman. It'll be interesting to see how these fights go.

Burns...the size difference was there but his coach had also told him not to engage in grappling. His instincts had him take Burns down, but as soon as Burns (remember--not just a legit black belt or "sub threat", a true world champion) rolled for the armbar Chimaev decided to heed his coaches advice and disengage. Had he tried to tee off...who knows?

Usman got backpacked like you said rd 1, but are we gonna act like he's some random decent fighter? Or an all time great? So he defended well and lost a lopsided rd 1. Then Chimaev tired (which obviously is a concern) and wasn't as effective. But still won.

Whitaker...he took him down, Bobby got up, took him down again and took his back and crushed his jaw. Previous injury, fine. He still had his back easily.

So what I said was you can choose to defend strikes but that allows him to advance to a dominant position. Are we saying taking the back is no longer a dominant position?

 

[rjmbrd]

Burns...the size difference was there but his coach had also told him not to engage in grappling. His instincts had him take Burns down, but as soon as Burns (remember--not just a legit black belt or "sub threat", a true world champion) rolled for the armbar Chimaev decided to heed his coaches advice and disengage. Had he tried to tee off...who knows?

Burns has a long body of work and was cartoonishly undersized. If Khamzat could have hurt him on the ground, he would have. He tried, got spooked and bailed.

Usman got backpacked like you said rd 1, but are we gonna act like he's some random decent fighter? Or an all time great? So he defended well and lost a lopsided rd 1. Then Chimaev tired (which obviously is a concern) and wasn't as effective. But still won.

Usman was coming off a horrific KO loss, followed by a clear cut 5 round decision loss. BJ Penn was an all-time great, this type of sentiment doesn't matter much without context.

The point is Usman had literally every metric we use to measure a fighters odds against him. No camp, short notice, up a full weight class he never fought in, across the world on a weeks notice, coming off 2 losses. Khamzat couldn't submit him and he couldn't do virtually any damage on the ground.

Whitaker...he took him down, Bobby got up, took him down again and took his back and crushed his jaw. Previous injury, fine. He still had his back easily.

No he absolutely did not crush his jaw and that was not a submission. Khamzat has never before in his life and never will again cause someone's teeth/gums to collapse in from a failed RNC.

Whittaker had his bone broken in DDP fight and didn't get it taken care of. We have thousands and thousands of modern MMA fights that end in RNC and face crank subs and this has literally never happened.

Again, Khamzat could out wrestle and back-pack but his ground strikes were not there or not impressive.

 

[mkess101]

Burns has a long body of work and was cartoonishly undersized. If Khamzat could have hurt him on the ground, he would have. He tried, got spooked and bailed.




Usman was coming off a horrific KO loss, followed by a clear cut 5 round decision loss. BJ Penn was an all-time great, this type of sentiment doesn't matter much without context.

The point is Usman had literally every metric we use to measure a fighters odds against him. No camp, short notice, up a full weight class he never fought in, across the world on a weeks notice, coming off 2 losses. Khamzat couldn't submit him and he couldn't do virtually any damage on the ground.



No he absolutely did not crush his jaw and that was not a submission. Khamzat has never before in his life and never will again cause someone's teeth/gums to collapse in from a failed RNC.

Whittaker had his bone broken in DDP fight and didn't get it taken care of. We have thousands and thousands of modern MMA fights that end in RNC and face crank subs and this has literally never happened.

Again, Khamzat could out wrestle and back-pack but his ground strikes were not there or not impressive.

He didn't even make an attempt to throw gnp at Burns. His coach told him to strike. He shot and took him down on instinct, realized immediately he wasn't doing what his coach said, and stood up. Of course a lot of that was respecting Burns bjj pedigree. But acting like Khamzat tried gnp and it was ineffective is silly. He didn't really even attempt any.

With Usman, one of the things about being an elite guy with a ton of experience is that you get adept at surviving and avoiding big damage on the mat. All the things "working against him" matter in the overall context of the fight, but don't apply that much to the very specific part of the fight we're discussing.

With Rob, it was over too quickly to know if gnp would've been effective. However his face broke, it happened early and there wasn't enough time to even see if Khamzat would start using gnp.

Let's see what happens when he takes DDP down. I think gnp will be a big part of the story, but I could be wrong. Maybe I'm overrating his effectiveness with it but I don't think so.

 

[wolffanghameha]

Chimaev struggled a lot with grappling in the beginning, he could wrestle but would get choked all the time

Fking hell, even though he was probably training with high level guys, I find this crazy knowing that Khamzat had such near-elite wrestling, lots of experience and now has such good submissions. Goes to show how much skill you've gotta acquire. I wonder how he'd do in ADCC at that point. You get those wrestlers who do well in ADCC with minimal bjj, but idk if they have a different style to Khamzat that lends itself to ADCC more.

 

[AL-Tappo McSnappo]

 

[188912345]

With Rob, it was over too quickly to know if gnp would've been effective. However his face broke, it happened early and there wasn't enough time to even see if Khamzat would start using gnp.

He actually hit Rob with a very good elbow and a couple of hard punches, that's what made Rob distracted enough for the choke to lock in.

He also had some decent ground and pound vs Usman, if I recall correctly.
In hindsight, he might have been able to finish him if he focused more on gnp instead of trying to choke him.