In a beautiful event that no one saw coming, it seemed as if Khamzat Chimaev retired from mixed martial arts (MMA) after posting a not-so-cryptic message on his Instagram account and suggesting that he ‘finish’ was before resigning his team as well as Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).
‘I want to thank you all very much for supporting me in my journey in this sport. I think I’m done. “Yes, I know I did not take the belt, but it is not the most important victory in this life,” he wrote on social media.
‘But this is not the most important victory in this life. It may upset you, but my heart and body tell me everything. I want to say thank you to my team All Star Gym Sweden and I want to say thank you to UFC. ”
Chimaev has been struggling with COVID-19 since contracting the virus in late 2020. The virus forced ‘Borz’ to bend on two occasions from a proposed Welterweight fight against Leon Edwards. Initially, it was Edwards who first had coronavirus, who had the first of a total of three cancellation attempts to make the fight take place.
Due to his ongoing health issues, UFC officials flew Chimaev to Las Vegas, Nevada, to get the medical care he needed. And while his manager did say that Chimaev’s first priority was to get his health back to full speed, he also said he wanted a return to action later this summer.
A few hours after ‘Borz’ posted the message on social media, Dana White revealed that he had spoken to Chimaev and insisted that he would not retire after their conversation.
“When he got here, the doctors took care of him, and they put him on prednisone, which is a nasty steroid,” White told MMA Junkie. ‘So he’s on prednisone, and he’s supposed to take this thing and cool it down, relax it, and let it recover. He went in and trained f * cking today, felt like sh * t, and got very emotional and posted it.
“He’s not supposed to practice, but you know, this guy is a savage. He wants to fight like every weekend, and now he can not even train, so he just got emotional and posted it, but he does not stop, ‘concludes White.
‘Borz’ – who is only 26 years old – erupted at the UFC scene last year after defeating John Phillips by submission at UFC Fight Island 1. He competed ten days later and beat Rhys McKee in the very first round. UFC Fight Island knocked out. 3. He then followed up the few dominant performances with a victory of seventeen seconds over Gerald Meerschaert two months later (see it again here).
His run-up was enough to grab White’s attention, who repeatedly expressed his excitement about exactly what the emerging competitor could achieve in the future. Chimaev also attracts the attention of top UFC candidates who feel he has not encountered anyone of quality to get so much praise.
For now, it looks like Chimaev will still keep fighting, but he still has a tough fight ahead of him before he can step into the cage again.