Anthony Smith has showered high praise on the UFC’s top prospect, Khamzat Chimaev.
The Chechen is scheduled to face former middleweight champion Robert Whittaker in the toughest fight of his career at UFC Saudi Arabia in June. Many fans and experts think the Aussie will pull off the upset since it’s a five-round fight and ‘Borz’ is known to have cardio issues going into the latter round.
In a recent episode of the ‘Believe You Me’ podcast with Michael Bisping, Anthony Smith stated that no one in the MMA world can defeat Khamzat Chimaev in the first round of a fight.
“I’m a real big believer in Khamzat, I really am, I think the guy’s incredible but if we’re just being critical, first round, I think Khamzat can beat anybody across any weight class, I don’t give a s*** who it is. Anybody in the world he can beat in the first round. We start getting into the second, third, fourth, fifth… the Gilbert Burns fight is kind of a perfect example. If that fight goes another two rounds…
“Better example is the Kamaru Usman fight. You don’t see people doing to Kamaru Usman what Khamzat did. Usman had built his career on being a ridiculous wrestler and he got tossed around like a rag doll in that fight but he had the toughness, the durability and all the experience to get out of it and into round two and he kind of closed the gap again a little bit and then in round three, he was winning the fight.”
Do you agree with Anthony Smith?
