Khamzat Chimaev’s coach was “very upset” during his star pupil’s UFC 273 fight against Gilbert Burns. Andreas Michael described his reaction to the “messy” three-round affair on The MMA Hour.
“I got very upset and I just told him, ‘Listen. We’ve been working for this for, like, 10 weeks. Stop jeopardizing this because you want to show everyone you’re the man.
Khamzat’s Coach was “very upset” with Gilbert Burns Fight
Understand? You are the man, but keep it simple. Keep your jab going. Keep it to what we’ve been working on.’ And at the end of the day we say, nobody’s going to love — well, I’m not saying nobody — but people love a winner. So just win the f****** fight.
I don’t remember Jon Jones’ fights in his last part of his career. They haven’t been spectacular, but nobody remembers that. You look at Sherdog and you see win win win win win win win.
At the end of the day, that’s what people remember, sad to say. They love a winner and they forget about a loser. I’m not saying I’m pushing him to do boring fights, what I’m saying is to do more intelligent fights and he has the ability.”
Khamzat Chimaev’s run through the UFC prior to the Gilbert Burns fight was remarkable, with Chimaev displaying a penchant for dominant, early finishes. At one point, he had more fights than strikes absorbed in his entire UFC career. Anyone who expected a first-round finish over as tough an opponent as Gilbert Burns, however, was bound for disappointment, a fact not lost on Andreas Michael.
“He’s a work in progress. A lot of people talking a lot of s***, talking out of their asses, you know? You can’t make everyone happy. If he knocked the guy out in two seconds, they would have said, ‘But his conditioning.’ ‘He doesn’t have heart.’ ‘He has to be tested.’ ‘He has to be this.’ So you can’t make everyone happy.
Of course, I didn’t like the way that he wanted to knock the guy out and show everyone, ‘Look, I’m just gonna walk through this guy as well,’ because we had a game plan. And the game plan was that he should just keep it simple.
And Khamzat is very talented in striking, but of course he needs a lot of experience. Experience is what he was lacking that evening and that’s what he got. A lot of experience, the hard way.”
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