Arman Tsarukyan had his work cut out for him getting Khamzat Chimaev to the scale.
Chimaev had to make 185 pounds or less for his middleweight title defense against Sean Strickland at UFC 328, and it was far from easy. When it came time to officially weigh in, Chimaev successfully hit the mark, but looked uneasy. He later went on to lose his title to Sean Strickland via split decision at the conclusion of a five-round fight that saw Chimaev’s energy levels noticeably drop after winning Round 1.
According to Tsarukyan, Chimaev almost lost the battle before he even made the walk to the octagon.
“From Day 1 of his training camp, he cut 40 pounds,” Tsarukyan told the JAXXON podcast. “[For fight week,] he had to cut 13 pounds. Tuesday, he had to cut, like, 12 or 13 pounds. First nine pounds was easy, and then he felt bad during the night, and then he woke up and said to us, ‘I feel so weak and, like, no energy. I don’t know how I’m going to cut this last four pounds.’ But we just pushed him so hard.
“He didn’t want to do that. He didn’t want to finish the cut, but the team, me and the coaches, we tried to push him to make the weight, and he made weight.”
One reason why Chimaev had to cut down from such a high number was Chimaev gearing up for a move to 205 pounds instead of a middleweight title defense. Both Tsarukyan and UFC commentator Joe Rogan have promoted this narrative, though it’s unclear if this was an official discussion had between Chimaev and the UFC.
Regardless, Chimaev looked so bad on the scale that rumors circulated on social media that he actually missed weight and was the beneficiary of favorable treatment from the New Jersey athletic commission. Tsarukyan shot that down, claiming UFC protocol makes such skullduggery impossible.
“He made the weight, because before the official weigh-ins, you go to one more weigh-in, the UFC checks you, your weigh-in, and he was good there, and then they let you go,” Tsarukyan said. “If there’s 186 on the automatic scale, you cannot go to the official one.”
Tsarukyan is also confident stating that were it not for Chimaev’s difficult weight cut, his fight with Strickland would have gone differently. Following Chimaev’s loss, Tsarukyan also suggested that the judges got the scores incorrect.
He definitely doesn’t feel that Strickland did enough to claim the middleweight title.
“The weight cut was hard, it was a rough weight cut,” Tsarukyan said. “The next day in the morning he felt good, so I asked him. But in the fight, we saw after the first round, he got tired, and he just strike. Yeah, probably, most likely it’s the weight cut. I haven’t talked to him yet about the fight, weight cut, and how he felt during the fight, most likely it’s the weight cut because here in the training he was doing sparring five rounds, non-stop, beat everybody, wrestle 25 minutes.
“I felt like after the first round I thought he could do four more rounds the same and it’s our fight, but I still think it was a close fight, but in a close fight the champion’s got to be a champion, and the contender got to take the belt when you win good, not just a tight fight and they give it to the contender.”
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