TJ Dillashaw doesn’t think the right people are being blamed for Khamzat Chimaev’s first MMA loss.
Chimaev lost his spot at the top of the UFC middleweight division earlier this month in Newark, coming up short in what was his first title defence.
It was Sean Strickland who handed him his first loss at UFC 328, outworking him over five hard-fought rounds inside the Prudential Center.
Since then, there’s been plenty of talk about where things went wrong, with one member of Chimaev’s team catching a lot of criticism from fans online.
Why TJ Dillashaw doesn’t agree with the criticism of Khamzat Chimaev’s conditioning coach Sam Calavitta
After Chimaev dominated Dricus du Plessis at UFC 319 last August to claim the middleweight title, conditioning coach Sam Calavitta was credited as a key part of his success.
Addressing concerns over his stamina, ‘Borz’ went the distance and won every round, crediting his improvement to the work he’d put in with Calavitta.
But things were different on May 9. Chimaev seemed to be struggling with fatigue early in the fight. While many pointed to a tough weight cut as the cause, Demetrious Johnson felt that Calavitta’s training methods were also to blame.
TJ Dillashaw, who has also trained under Calavitta, pushed back against those claims during an appearance on Tim Welch’s Red Hawk Recap podcast.
“People don’t know what they’re talking about,” Dillashaw said. “They only get to see what’s on Instagram, and then they want to find an excuse of why this guy lost. They don’t wanna say anything about when he fought DDP and just had endless cardio, right?
“What it comes down to is a bad weight cut can destroy 12 weeks worth of work, completely,” he continued. “And we all know he had a bad weight cut.
“The weight was not coming off of him. He didn’t even want to follow through with the fight. He had to reach down deep and just make it. I really feel like that affected him.
“They want to point blame when in all honesty, Sam Calavitta is the one that actually made me pull back, and I know he is making other guys pull back (in training) if they actually listen.”
The talk around whether ‘Borz’ should move up in weight hasn’t quieted down since then either. Chimaev looked worn out on the scale ahead of UFC 328, fuelling more speculation about how long he’d stick around at middleweight.
Khamzat’s most recent comments though, indicate his focus is on getting another shot at Strickland and settling the score there first before making any decision about moving up in weight classes.
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