How good is Khamzat Chimaev? Is he good enough to win the middleweight title, especially when the champion is often described as having ‘plot armor’ by the MMA community? Former welterweight champion Kamaru Usman believes so.
Usman has already shared the octagon with Chimaev once. He took a short-notice middleweight bout with ‘Borz’ for the main event at UFC 294 and came really close to beating him. And that is exactly how he knows that the Chechen-born fighter has what it takes to be the next UFC middleweight champion.
In a conversation with Din Thomas for ESPN MMA, Usman claimed that Chimaev is probably the most difficult person to deal with in the first round. Further explaining the nightmare, he added, “You can’t get to round 2 or 3 if you can’t get past 1.”
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Borz often shoots for takedowns from the get-go, and he has a unique technique where he is only inches above the ground when he connects. It’s a series of submission attempts complemented by powerful ground-and-pound, all happening in a matter of seconds until the opponent taps out or the referee has to intervene.
It’s a storm to wade through and only a couple of fighters like Gilbert Burns and Usman have been able to weather it so far. It is impossible to keep fighting at the same pace throughout, so Chimaev does slow down, but that only makes him like the rest of the challenge out there.
In the fight against Burns, he ended up taking a lot of damage but dissed out just as much on the Brazilian. Now, Usman might have had him on the ropes if their fight was scheduled for 5 rounds, but that would be a big ‘IF’ to base calculations on. At this point, the consensus amidst the MMA fanbase dictates that Chimaev is fated to be the champion.
That said, if anyone can beat fate, it has to be the man with real-life plot armor.
Du Plessis’ secret superpower
If you are wondering what plot armor is, it is a literary device used by writers as an excuse for their main characters to get out of situations nobody else could. Think Jon Snow making it alive in a stampede during Season 6’s ‘Battle of The Bastards’ or Thanos waiting in awe of Captain America while he assembled the Avengers.
It’s also why the ‘Road Runner’ can never be caught by Wile E. Coyote. Dricus Du Plessis has that working for him in real life. Earlier this year, two of his most famous opponents, Robert Whittaker and Israel Adesanya got together and scratched their heads over how someone like him beat them both.
Whittaker claimed when he saw DDP, he thought the South African was just really slow; that is until he got hit smack-dab in the middle of his head. Adesanya, ever the literary magnifico, simply surmised that DDP was the “best sh*t fighter in the world”.
In his title defense against Izzy at UFC 305, the challenger would often look like he was dominating and yet somehow his momentum would be interrupted by Dricus’s wildly swinging arms. DDP even managed to secure a successful takedown while literally falling on his face.
However, it’s not just the absurdity of his style either. The champ has one of the most disciplined and well-worked camps in the UFC that complements his skills and tempo during a fight. In the rematch against Sean Strickland at UFC 312, DDP kept smacking the American with high kicks and body shots to stop his ridiculous press.
DDP would move in, jab, move out, change stance, and do it again to counter Strickland’s tried and tested methods. It was an extremely well-worked out plan, and he executed it to perfection.
That said, how will he manage to do that against an unstoppable force of nature in Khamzat Chimaev? Can he be that unmovable object? Time will tell.
