Colby Covington has unloaded on Khamzat Chimaev’s performance and mentality following Chimaev’s split decision loss to Sean Strickland in their middleweight title fight at UFC 328.
Chimaev dropped the belt to Strickland last month at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., in a fight where he slowed down noticeably in Round 2, had a takedown stuffed, and then pulled guard. Covington focused his criticism on Chimaev’s cardio and mindset after the bout.
"It was a weird fight," Covington said, before blasting Chimaev’s talk about his weight cut. "He started making all those excuses for the weight cut. It's like, bro, you already went up a weight class. It's not the weight cut, man. It's a discipline cut. It's a mental type of cut. You're cut from a different cloth. You can see he kind of has that quitter in him. What was he doing pulling guard in the second round? I could never imagine just accepting guard and pulling guard."
Covington doubled down on his view of Chimaev’s mentality, adding, "That's where girls are supposed to be. Girls are supposed to be on the bottom and the guys come on top into missionary. It was just weird to see him pulling guard so easily. I don't know. I think he's mentally weak, and that's why I've always been excited to compete against him because people that I competed against that aren't mentally strong, I'm going to expose them every time."
After the fight, Chimaev told UFC CEO Dana White he wanted to move up to 205 pounds, but later expressed a desire to avenge his loss to Strickland.
