Khamzat Chimaev has made it from over 220lb to come in below the middleweight limit for his UFC 319 main event.
Undefeated title challenger Chimaev takes on Dricus Du Plessis in Chicago tomorrow night, and has looked massive in the pair’s few meetings and face-offs. But he and the champion both made it within the limit to make their title fight official.
Chimaev has limited experience over the five rounds, only ever going out of the second twice in his career. But he faces one of the toughest tests in the sport on Saturday against the awkward and unorthodox South African.
Khamzat Chimaev makes weight for UFC 319 clash with Dricus Du Plessis
On Friday morning, Khamzat Chimaev and Dricus Du Plessis both took to the scales to make their weights official for UFC 319. ‘Borz’ was first up, looking shredded as he weighed in at 183lb, bizarrely using the curtain for his weigh-in.
He was quite a bit ahead of Du Plessis, who at the time of writing has yet to tip the scales. Caio Borralho weighed in at 184lb as the back-up.
Khamzat Chimaev was over 220lb at the start of fight camp
Chimaev’s close friend and training partner Movsar Evloev was involved in training camp for this fight, and revealed that his teammate was massive before starting his cut. The undefeated top featherweight told Mike Perry on his Overdogs podcast that he would likely be bigger than Du Plessis for the fight.
“When he fought Whittaker he just took him down and broke him” Evloev said of Chimaev’s size and power. “Nobody had done this against Whittaker, and Khamzat still has big power of punching, he can turn off your lights with one punch.
“I think he’s even bigger than Du Plessis, of course he is bro, he’s big and strong as hell. I don’t know how much in pounds, but he was more than 100kg (220lb).”