First round, very impressed. I knew if Khamzat gets Usman to the mat without them scrambling back up straight away, he’d have a huge advantage. Well, Khamzat did get fresh Usman down and made it look kinda easy. That alone should impress the hell out of anyone. Then Chimaev proceeded to dominate Usman for the remainder of the round, threatening with chokes and landing gnp, even if the strikes were kinda soft or blocked. Credit to Usman for defending well, he was put in baaad positions.
2nd round I don’t know what I was watching. They had the pace of a 3rd round HW fight, both careful in their advances and pretty much just pot shotted. It wasn’t impressive for either guy and Usman got back in the fight by landing the better shots on the feet, where he managed to keep the fight. I’d say they didn’t look like top5 MW fighters here.
3rd round was pretty close, Usman having some advantage on the feet and Khamzat got the takedown which probably won him the round. Usman managed to get up and the stand up was sloppy as shit by both guys, swinging wide arcing shots, telegraphed and bad technique. Arms totally burned out from grappling? Maybe, but that after taking the second round off that looked awful. At least for Usman it was a short notice fight, so I will cut him a little slack.
I don’t know how Costa would’ve looked against this version of Chimaev, but ehh.. Overall not very impressed. I think Costa would’ve beat this version of Usman and I’ll fight you
Btw
@TheMMAnalyst wasn’t this fight pretty much how we thought it would to down?