Very interesting fight. So Khamzat up until now has not had to think as much and has been able to more overwhelm his opponents with his skills, frantic pace and aggression. But that is a very flawed strategy to use against elite fighters because elite fighters are able to make you pay for mistakes at a significantly higher rate and Khamzat learned this today. Now he is definitely a fantastically skilled fighter and given his age and work ethic I have no doubt that he will learn from the mistakes he made in this fight and he has all the skills, the chin and mental strength to one day become champion but he definitely has some cleaning up to due with his fight IQ because if he fights this same way against Usman or Colby he would get finished by Usman in the later rounds and gassed out and decisioned by Colby. I think he was feeding off of his hype a bit to much and it made him fight really sloppily at times when he really did not have to as he seemed to be forcing a finish from the start. He could have made this fight a lot easier for himself by listening to his coaches instruction to pace himself more and take his time in setting up his offense more. What impressed me the most about Khamzat is that he won this fight basically trying to force the finish on the best version of Gilbert Burns, easily one of the best fighters in the division. This otherworldy hype for Khamzat has been brought back down to earth but the interesting thing is unlike many others on this forum I think this is the best thing that ever happened to Khamzat if he takes the lesson that is infront of him and applies it moving forward. Great fight though.
