Chimaev’s coach, Alan “Finfou” Nascimento, knew that his
fighter could control the animal inside him.
Nascimento believes Chimaev substantially changed ahead of his
fight against Robert
Whittaker in 2024. While Chimaev once flipped off the crowd
after missing weight by 7.5 pounds, “Borz” wore glasses and was
respectful towards everyone going into his fight against Whittaker.
This even had fans worried as they thought the wild and often
unruly fighter had lost his hunger and aggression.
However, Nascimento wasn’t worried as he had been observing Chimaev
change since the birth of his son a year ago. Nascimento assured
others that, while Chimaev previously used to be controlled by the
animal inside him, he was now in control of the beast and would
unleash it when needed. Chimaev proved “Finfou” right by breaking
Whittaker’s jaw with a face-crank in the first round to earn a
stoppage win.
“The biggest change in Khamzat as a more mature man came during the
fight with Robert Whittaker, where everyone was like, ‘He’s not
aggressive anymore, he’s wearing glasses, he’s too calm, maybe he’s
not hungry anymore, maybe he doesn’t want it anymore, maybe he lost
the aggression.’… That specific year was when everything switched
because his son was born one year ago,” Nascimento told Real MMA
Today. “Right before that fight, his son needed to get surgery… I
knew that everything was OK with him, but people who didn’t follow
that were worried. They were asking me and I said, ‘Before, he had
an animal inside him that controlled him. Now he’s mature enough to
still have that monster inside him, but he controls it. He doesn’t
need to keep it leashed 24/7. He knows exactly the moment to
unleash it. You guys gonna see.’ Then he went and fought Robert
Whittaker, and everybody saw what happened.”
The win over Whittaker earned Chimaev (15-0) a title shot against
Dricus Du
Plessis, who he dominantly dethroned to become the
Ultimate Fighting Championship middleweight champion last
year.