"We have seen him slow down" - Short-notice fight may give Kamaru Usman wrestling advantage over Khamzat Chimaev, says Dan Hardy

UFC sensation Khamzat Chimaev will take on former welterweight champion Kamaru Usman in the co-main event of UFC 294.

Usman will replace former middleweight challenger Paulo Costa on short notice. Former UFC fighter Dan Hardy weighed in on the differences that the new matchup poses on his YouTube channel.

Hardy highlighted wrestling as a key deciding factor between the two:

“This has a got a different twist to it. Because Chimaev wrestling against Kamaru Usman, who’s not cutting as much weight and he’s confident that he’s going to push hard for 15 minutes, he’s going to wrestle back. And this is where it can become very draining for Chimaev, very quickly. And we have seen him slow down and we have seen him - like, I’m a big fan of his style but we’ll go back to the tale of the tape, he’s 12-0 and at 12-0, having manhandled the majority of people, in your head you feel like, well that’s the best route to victory.”

Hardy also warned Khamzat Chimaev of exerting himself more than he could make up for against a seasoned former champion like Kamaru Usman:

“[If] his mentality is, 'I’m going to come in and I’m going to manhandle everybody because this is my route to victory.' I feel like that’s not necessarily the smart thing to do against Kamaru Usman, because I feel like he’s going to at least be able to nullify a lot of that wrestling pressure. It is exhausting as well, because there's a hurry to what he's doing. There's a tendency to expend more energy than he needs to.”

Check out his comments below [3:37]:

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Alexander Volkanovski questions whether Kamaru Usman can handle Khamzat Chimaev's pace

In his dominant days as a welterweight champion, Kamaru Usman was known to fight at his own controlled pace.

Featherweight king Alexander Volkanoski raised concerns over Usman's ability to deal with Khamzat Chimaev's blistering pace.

"I don’t know how long Usman’s been training for and Chimaev is a very, very high-paced fighter. So does that come into play? Can Usman handle the shots? I think he can. Can he handle that pace that Chimaev is going to put? Everything’s going to be 100 percent. It’s a three-rounder. He goes in for the kill, even when he’s wrestling or he’s punching. He can’t leave openings in striking."

Alexander Volkanovski himself will be in action against lightweight champion Islam Makhachev in the main event.

Check out his comments below [2:56]: