UFC Abu Dhabi: Was Khamzat Chimaev Fight Island’s Biggest Winner?
The UFC Fight Island series of events were concluded on Sunday morning, after four groundbreaking events that reshaped entire weight divisions. Two new champions were crowned, two champions defended their titles, skilled fighters solidified their claim as some of the best in the business, and newcomers dominated their UFC debuts. Some might argue that the biggest winner on Fight Island was a newcomer called Khamzat Chimaev, and here’s why.
Although the biggest fight of the four events was between Jorge Masvidal and Kamaru Usman, which was won via judges’ decision, the winner wasn’t praised much because the match wasn’t as interesting and he couldn’t finish an opponent who took the match in 6 days. The second biggest match was Volkoanovski against Holloway, and it was also won via decision, with many arguing that Holloway deserved to win.
Peter Yan scored a huge win over the legendary Jose Aldo, and won the bantamweight title. The same goes for Figueiredo, who won the flyweight title against Benavidez. Kattar and Whittaker also won important matches in their respective main events and solidified their place in their weight divisions.
But the true superstar who captured all the attention and stole the show on Fight Island is Khamzat! It took the Russian-born Swedish fighter only 10 days between two wins, a very impressive world record of the quickest turnaround in modern UFC History was 13 days. The two wins took place on Abu Dhabi’s Fight Island, on the second and fourth fight nights.
In the two fights, Khamzat totally dominated his opponents and took his professional record from 6-0 to 8-0, with a 100% finish rate. The first win came against John Phillips in the Middle Weight division, winning in the second round via submission. In the two rounds, John only stroked Khamzat twice, against 124 strikes from Khamzat!
After the impressive first fight, people were already paying close attention to the guy who dominated his UFC debut. Things became more interesting later that week when it was announced that Khamzat is coming back for another match in less than 10 days. His Welterweight opponent Rhys Mckee has an impressive record of 10-2, and also 100% finish rate, so the fight shouldn’t have been even remotely competitive. However, it was far from that, as Rhys failed to strike Khamzat even once, against 69 strikes from Khamzat, before the judge stopped the match as a result of a TKO.
All eyes are now on Khamzat, and as the Welterweight division is dominated by Usman, who won against 6 of the top 10 ranked welterweights, it would be interesting to see him rise quickly in the rankings and become a champion. In the post-fight interview, Khamzat talked about how he’s ready to face anyone, and that he’s here to “smash” people.
In a statement to Yahoo Sports, UFC President Dana White said that Khamzat will be back in UFC 252, on the 15th of August.
