The UFC debut event in Saudi Arabia goes down this Saturday June 21st, and while the card is looking good it’s got a big Khamzat Chimaev sized hole in the main event.
Chimaev was set to headline against Robert Whittaker in a bout that had major implications for the middleweight championship picture. But then “Borz” was forced to pull out of the event due to being “violently ill.” According to his management team at All Stars Gym in Sweden, Chimaev has been in and out of hospitals all through training camp and could not compete.
That’s all we know about his illness, and it sounds like the situation is just as mysterious to Khamzat and his teammates as well. In a new interview with Papa Kuranchie, Chimaev’s training partner and former top light heavyweight contender Alexander Gustafsson discussed the Chechen fighter’s situation.
‘’The guy gets ill,” Gustafsson said. “There is something with his body that reacts to hard training because he is the hardest worker in the room, he’s always been the hardest worker. They have to run some tests and see what the background is, whether there is something in his body that’s reacting to the hard training because he trains very hard. I hope they find what it is and take care of the problem and he gets better.”
“He very easily catches a cold for example – a running nose, coughing, symptoms that are not a big deal at all, we all get that. But I’ve seen when he increases his training a lot, I know his body reacts differently to the training. I don’t know where it comes from. It’s crazy how he reacts to the training these days.”
“I can’t even imagine how frustrated he is, I know he doesn’t feel good at all,” he continued. “He’s ill, he’s very ill. Not only that, it’s the mental part. You have a big fight ahead of you, it’s the big card in Saudi Arabia and everything is on you, then this s— happens. He’s going through some hard times right now but I know the guy, he’s going to come back stronger and take care of the issue.”
Chimaev hasn’t been the same since a bad case of COVID-19 knocked him out of action in early 2021. While he’s fought three times since then and won all three bouts, his ability to accept fights and show up in top form has been seriously called into question. And with no clear diagnosis and treatment plan, it’s hard to see the UFC continuing to use him as an anchor at the top of important cards until things change.
