Khamzat Chimaev hasn’t let go of UFC 328. The former middleweight champion told ESPN that he still believes the judges robbed him in May, when Sean Strickland took the 185-pound title from him by split decision after a full 25 minutes.
Chimaev didn’t soften it, either. “I won the match but they took my belt. I’m not a judge, but I’ve never seen the guy who is running backwards win the fight. First time in the history of UFC you see the guy who is running backwards wins the belt,” he said.
The comments surfaced in a report from Heavy, republished by Yahoo Sports, and they land at an awkward moment for the division. Neither man has fought since that title bout, which was one of the biggest fights of the year. The middleweight belt has been sitting still for close to six months.
A champion in a pay fight, a challenger with no assignment
Strickland is in a very public pay dispute with the UFC. He believes he is underpaid and wants a raise before he takes a rematch with top contender Nassourdine Imavov. That fight looks like the one the promotion wants next, and it’s the one Chimaev wants to jump.
Chimaev’s pitch is simple economics. He argued that a fight with him would be bigger than Imavov, which would mean a bigger check for a champion who says he needs one. “He should accept the fight against me. He’ll try to go for other fights, and he’s crying about money. If he needs the money, he has to fight me,” Chimaev said.
In the meantime, the UFC hasn’t given Chimaev his next fight, even though he has said he wants to stay active. He’s been keeping busy by wrestling in RAF, which is a fun detail for anyone who wants to see his chain wrestling without the striking getting in the way. His priority is clear enough. “First, I want to get my belt back. That’s the number one, for me, is to get the belt back. After that, we’ll see what’s going to happen,” he said.
Quick take
The word “robbed” is doing a lot of work for a split decision, because a split means one judge already agreed with him. And the argument he chose is the weakest one available. Under the unified rules, aggression and cage control only come into play when effective striking and grappling are even, so the guy walking forward doesn’t bank a round just for walking forward. Plenty of fighters have won belts moving backwards and landing the cleaner shots on the way. If Chimaev wants to make a robbery case, it lives in what he did on top and in the clinch, and he didn’t make it here.
That said, he has the better case for the next title shot. A close split in a title fight is exactly the result a rematch exists for. If Strickland and the UFC stay stuck on money for the Imavov fight, the matchmakers already have a willing challenger who is spending his Saturdays wrestling in RAF to stay sharp. Book it.
