T.J. Dillashaw says Khamzat Chimaev was “almost dying” during his weight cut ahead of UFC 328 and believes his performance against Sean Strickland — including going the distance despite being so compromised — is a testament to just how tough Chimaev is.
Dillashaw, a former two-time UFC bantamweight champion who was part of Chimaev’s camp, spoke to MMA Fighting about the full picture of what happened behind the scenes.
“Khamzat looked like an animal for his camp, like he was unbeatable. There was no way he was going to get beat, but then you get someone that you’re paying — there’s a lot of frauds in this world — and the way that they made him cut weight was horrible.”
Dillashaw attributed the weight cut disaster to poor water management.
“Well, the water. I mean, if I could put it to one thing — your body will shut down. Like you can’t go and lose 10 pounds all at once and not drink enough water to tell your brain and your body to, ‘Hey, let’s keep losing weight. Let’s keep pushing water.’ If you lose too much of it too fast in one sitting, your body will stop sweating. Yeah, you might only have three pounds to go, but guess what? That’s gonna take you seven, eight hours because you’re dying. You’re straight up dying. Your body’s telling you you’re dying.”
He described the full extent of what Chimaev was going through before stepping into the cage.
“He wanted to give Strickland $1 million and say, ‘Hey, take it. I can’t make it, I’m going to die.’ And you forget this guy’s got half a thyroid, right? His metabolism is half of a normal man. And so if you’re not treating it the right way, you could kill him. And I really believe he was on the verge of death making that weight cut. He should not have made it to the fight. And to see how he performed still — Round 5, Round 4, he still had the better fight in cardio than Strickland, and Strickland’s supposed to be a cardio guy. Khamzat’s the one going forward landing the bigger shots. So Sean won a fight going backwards, throwing a jab? I don’t see it that way. But it makes me realize how tough Khamzat is to do as well as he did on almost dying before getting on that scale.”
Dillashaw said Chimaev only showed up to fight week 16 pounds over, and argued the situation was entirely avoidable.
“People need to understand: What he pushed through to fight is impressive. He just needs to do it the right way. He was only 16 pounds over showing up to fight week. That is easy. It’s about the water displacement. And unfortunately they didn’t do that.”