"Keep it simple" - Khamzat Chimaev's coach reveals what the game plan was to fight Gilbert Burns
Khamzat Chimaev’s coach Andreas Michael has revealed that his star pupil significantly deviated from their game plan in his fight against Gilbert Burns. The undefeated Chimaev was the favorite heading into his fight against top-tier welterweight contender Burns at UFC 273 on April 9.
After dominating round one with superior technical striking, ‘Borz’ brawled with Burns in round two and was almost finished. Chimaev returned to his jab in round three and secured a unanimous decision win.
last night!This was WAR 💥
@KChimaev and @GilbertDurinho brought the 🔥 last night! https://t.co/LMklFEpYCX
Speaking to Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour, Michael admitted that Chimaev recklessly chased the knockout to please the fans. Shedding light upon their original gameplan for the Burns matchup, Michael stated:
“We had a gameplan. And the gameplan was that you should just keep it simple. And Khamzat is very talented in striking, but, of course, he needs a lot of experience. And the experience is what he was lacking that evening. And that’s what he got; a lot of experience, the hard way.”
Michael pointed out that Chimaev was fighting at an extremely high pace, akin to maintaining the tempo of a 100-meter sprint in a 3-kilometer race. Michael said:
“He goes in there, and he tries to knock the guy’s head off from the first moment, which was not the plan. The plan was to just box him; keep the jab going. Because that’s the way to beat; that’s the way to handle that situation. And he did absolutely everything we didn’t work on.”
Watch Andreas Michael’s conversation with Ariel Helwani in the video below:
Michael Bisping believes Khamzat Chimaev could alter his approach in upcoming fights
The consensus is that next, Khamzat Chimaev is likely to fight former interim UFC welterweight champion, Colby Covington. Michael Bisping recently opined that ‘Borz’ might tone down his risk-taking and aggression in his upcoming matchups. ‘The Count’ harked back to his fighting career and claimed he banked on pure aggression to get him through his early fights.
Bisping indicated, however, that as he started facing adversity in his career, he steadily adopted a more cerebral approach to fighting. He opined that given how tough the Burns matchup was, we could likely see Khamzat Chimaev approach his future fights more cerebrally, which might make some of his performances less exciting. Taking to his Live Chat YouTube channel, Bisping said:
"As you start getting adversity, you start going through tougher fights, you start thinking sh**, I have got to have a more cerebral approach. I think we're going to see that from Khamzat, will that make him more deadly? I don't know, it may remove some of the excitement."
See the full video below: