Kamaru Usman was all class in addressing the criticism surrounding Khamzat Chimaev’s close win over him.
Chimaev (15-0 MMA, 9-0 UFC) dominated and outgrappled Dricus Du Plessis (23-3 MMA, 9-1 UFC) to claim the middleweight title in Saturday’s UFC 319 headliner at United Center in Chicago. Usman was one of the few fighters to pick Chimaev to win.
So how good is Usman? That’s a thought that emerged through many people’s minds after the former welterweight champion pushed Chimaev to the brink on just days’ notice in a majority decision loss at middleweight in October 2023.
“Let’s address this, the whole, ‘Oh you took the fight on this days’ notice.’ Listen, at the end of the day, I know who I am as a fighter, and the way I approach this game, and so does Khamzat Chimaev,” Usman said on his “Pound 4 Pound” podcast with Henry Cejudo. “At the end of the day, it was still a loss on my side and it was a win for Khamzat Chimaev. ‘Oh, you should feel this way.’ No, it was an ‘L.’ I don’t feel any sort or type of way.
“It was an ‘L,’ and there’s a mutual respect there because each and every fight that we go into as fighters, you don’t know what we’re dealing with. You don’t know what he was dealing with, you don’t know what I was dealing with. It looked the way it did. Styles make fights. I’m a much different style than these guys are, and I say it all the time: You don’t know until you get in there. Khamzat did his best that he could to get the win and he got that win. So let’s give him that credit and let’s move on.”
After losing to Chimaev, Usman (21-4 MMA, 16-3 UFC) returned from an 20-month layoff to snap the winning streak of Joaquin Buckley in the UFC on ESPN 69 headliner in June.
