Khamzat Chimaev admits it was a “little bit hard” to fight Gilbert Burns following chance encounter with his kids

Khamzat Chimaev admits it was a “little bit hard” to fight Gilbert Burns following a chance encounter with his children.

Chimaev (11-0 MMA) and Burns (20-5 MMA) collided in a highly anticipated welterweight bout on the main card of last night’s UFC 273 event.

‘Borz’ had entered the contest looking to improve his Octagon record to 5-0. The undefeated Swede had last competed at UFC 267 where he earned a first round finish over Li Jingliang.

As for Gilbert Burns, the former welterweight title challenger had entered UFC 273 looking to build off his recent victory over Stephen Thompson.

Last night’s ‘Chimaev vs. Burns’ matchup proved to be an absolute war. ‘The Wolf’ was able to drop ‘Durinho’ near the end of the opening round but the Brazilian followed suit by dropping the Swede in round two. Round three was an all out slugfest and after fifteen minutes of action Khamzat Chimaev was awarded the decision victory (29-28 x3).

While it was not the “smeshing” that some fans were expecting, it was undoubtedly an impressive showing for Chimaev.

Speaking with the UFC after the fight, Chimaev admitted that things didn’t exactly go according to plan.

“No, I did not expect it. I was trying to like — I was so excited for the fight. ‘He’s number two-ranked, I’m gonna take his whole head off.’ That’s why it wasn’t that good. My coach was — you can see in the middle of the round, he just came back, he said, ‘What are you doing? Work like we do.’ It wasn’t my best because I wanted to take his whole head off but you learn, ya know? I’m just going to war and dropped him, he dropped me and I came up and showed my heart. You learn a lot of things from these fights and I’m happy for that.”

Later, at the UFC post-fight press conference, Khamzat Chimaev details how a chance encounter with Gilbert Burns kids also affected his mentality.

“It actually was a little bit hard to fight him because I see his kids. They come to me (and say) ‘you fight my daddy’ and I said ‘s**t’, I don’t need that. I don’t want to fight with some daddy. I need some killer like me, who will kill somebody and don’t care about that s**t. I go to him (after that fight), I said I respect you brother, sorry for punches and we do that for our family and to have fun as well.”

Khamzat Chimaev is expected to face Colby Covington in his next UFC appearance.