Team: Khamzat Chimaev ‘thought he was going to die’

Once again, the highly anticipated meeting between Khamzat Chimaev and Leon Edwards has fallen through.

After the bout’s cancellation on Thursday due to continued complications following his contraction of COVID-19 late last month, additional details about Chimaev’s condition have emerged.

“The other day when he finished training, on Tuesday, he couldn’t even walk up to his room,” Chimaev’s manager Majdi Shammas said on FrontKick.online (via Fightful). “He didn’t even have the energy to walk up to his room. He fell asleep in the lobby.

“He can’t train. His friends called me and said, ‘Hey, Khamzat can’t even speak. His fever is so high, his headache is so much, you know, his muscle pain and everything.’ Then an ambulance came and got him to the hospital. Even when he was in the hospital he called me like, when he called me he thought he was going to die. He was really bad.”

At just 26-years old, Khamzat Chimaev has burst onto the scene unlike arguably anyone ever has before in MMA.

In 2020, the Chechnya native made his UFC debut in as dominant of a fashion as anyone could possibly dream of. First squaring off with John Phillips at middleweight, Chimaev pulverized his opposition on the ground giving Phillips no space to breathe en route to a second-round TKO win.

To follow it up a mere 10 days later, Chimaev put on an identical performance at welterweight against the UFC newcomer Rhys McKee. The finish just came quicker than the previous as “Bors” only needed three minutes and nine seconds.

Two months later and Chimaev was back at middleweight where he would starch Gerald Meerschaert in just 17-seconds with a single punch. Since then, the 9-0 prospect has been booked to face the No. 3 ranked welterweight in Leon Edwards (18-3) on three separate occasions. All of which have fallen through due to the Coronavirus.