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Khamzat Chimaev not only mentioned Ramzan Kadyrov in his post-fight speech but also returned him to Chechnya on a private jet.
Chimaev garnered a decision victory over former UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman at UFC 294 over the weekend. But it was his activities post-fight that also had people talking, albeit in a different way.
On the latest installment of The MMA Hour, Ariel Helwani addressed the quandary people in the MMA community face seeing such a prominent fighter like Chimaev interacting with the controversial leader of Chechnya.
Addressing the translated post-fight comments from Khamzat Chimaev to Ramzan Kadyrov, as well as their previous interactions, Helwani said:
"What do we make of and what to do with some of the uncomfortableness of someone like Khamzat Chimaev being very close friends with a Chechen dictator, rubbing elbows, his sons taking photos with Dana White…Do we just ignore all this?"
"I don’t really know how to process all of this. What do we do? No other sport brings this moral and internal conflict to its audience.”
Check out the clip of Helwani below
Khamzat Chimaev's UFC 294 Translated Comments
There was a stark contrast in tone between the uplifting early segment in Khamzat Chimaev's post-fight speech at UFC 294 and what was revealed to have been said at the interview's tail end.
A translation via Karim Zidan’s Sports Politika of Chimaev's post-fight remarks in Chechen are as follows:
“Chief, may Allah be pleased with you, it is not difficult to perform here and fight for you here. If you give me permission, I swear by Allah, I will be the first to go there [to Palestine]. For God’s sake, give me weapons so I can go to Palestine."
"I swear, I wasn’t raised to fight in shorts. I swore allegiance to our chief and I swear, if he gives me the right, I am the guy who will go and die there. I don’t worry about my own death as much as I worry about [the death of] my Muslim brothers.”
The English portion of Chimaev's post-fight speech saw 'Borz' articulate decidedly more positive thoughts than the later translated part of the interview.
Check out Chimaev's UFC 294 post-fight speech below
