Disaster Looms If ‘Reaper’ Drags Chimaev Deep

Khamzat Chimaev is fighting in his first five round bout aganst cardio monster Robert Whittaker. That spells trouble to Bisping.

Michael Bisping believes Khamzat Chimaev could be in real trouble if Robert Whittaker survives the first round of their UFC Saudi Arabia fight and drags him into deep waters.

Whittaker and Chimaev will compete in the main event of the June 22nd UFC Fight Night held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. That means a five round fight, something we’ve never seen from “Borz.”

And based on how we’ve seen the Chechen fighter wilt across three round fights, that could spell disaster for Chimaev.

“Automatically, if you’re in the corner of Khamzat Chimaev, you’ve got to be concerned,” Bisping said on the latest episode of ‘Believe You Me.’ “One thing Robert Whittaker is not going to do is run out of gas. He’s a very experienced fighter, fighting at the highest level for a long time. Without getting into the Xs and Os, the obvious thing is: Khamzat always gasses.”

“He’s a tremendous force of nature,” Bisping added. “The way he takes people down and dominates them right from the opening bell. He did the same thing against Kamaru Usman. Granted, didn’t get the finish, but he definitely did slow down.”

“Against Gilbert Burns, same thing. He had a great round 1. 2 and 3 were kind of close. Five rounds against somebody like Robert Whittaker? If he can’t finish him early, that could be a disastrous night for him in Saudi Arabia.”

It’s hard to disagree with Bisping’s analysis of the situation. Chimaev hit Usman like a bull in the opening seconds of their UFC 294 fight, only to slow down and almost lose the fight via majority decision. Two more rounds? Against Robert Whittaker? On paper it sounds iffy.

So now we’ll have to see whether Chimaev keeps his foot on the gas through the early rounds of their fight or blitzes “The Reaper” to try and avoid going into the deep rounds at all. And hey, who knows? Maybe Khamzat has fixed the cardio issues we witnessed in 2022 and 2023.

As the much-hyped contender prepares to finally lock in a title shot, it would certainly be a help.