Robert Whittaker recently gave his former opponent Khamzat Chimaev’s wrestling credit.
Whittaker faced Chimaev in a potential middleweight title eliminator at UFC 308 on October 26th. Chimaev wasted no time getting Whittaker a takedown before sinking with a face crank, injuring the former champion’s jaw and forcing him to stop in the first frame.
Whittaker was very impressed with Chimaev’s takedown. “Bobby Knuckles” was comfortable on his feet for a while, but once Chimaev landed a takedown, there was no escape. Despite working hard on his wrestling in training camp, Whittaker was unable to find anyone to emulate the Chechen-born Swede. Whittaker further pointed out that it was not Chimaev’s strength that was the most difficult to defend against, but his chain wrestling.
“I felt really comfortable standing with him,” Whittaker said recently on the MMA Arcade podcast. “So the guy drops like a millimeter. How do you stop that takedown? … We did a lot of wrestling, we did a lot of work, a lot of wall work. We did, but it’s so hard to recreate something like that.” Takedowns, that kind of commitment. And props to him. Guy knows his strength and is going to play them off the tee and burn everything for it.
“He had really bad sags. It’s not like he was ridiculously strong or anything like that. But he had really bad sags. And he was really good at making me work. He It seemed like he was really good at making sure he was active. He was always reaching for the underhook, reaching for the ankle pick, trying to put the hook in.”
Whittaker recently underwent oral surgery as a result of his submission and is looking to make June’s return to the Octagon.
