Georges St-Pierre points out what makes Chimaev special, how to approach competing against him

Khamzat Chimaev has bulldozed everyone in his path to be considered in the title picture. The Swedish up-and-comer recently proved how good he is with wins over Gilbert Burns and Kevin Holland. With that, everyone’s wondering how the mighty ‘Borz’ could be defeated.

Paddy Pimblett was prompted to ask about Khamzat, when fans heard he’d be hosting former Welterweight Champion Georges St-Pierre.

GSP was on his Chattin Pony Podcast, where Paddy asked him how he’d approach Khamzat Chimaev match up.

GSP said that he’d have to assess what the Swede does by analyzing footage. While this isn’t something that he has done for Chimaev, he did watch him take on Burns. From that, he was able to analyze Khamzat’s style.

He praised Khamzat, saying that he’s got “a great pressure style” and that he’s “very aggressive.”

GSP referred back to Khamzat’s outing at UFC 273 to tell Paddy how he’d handle him.

“His toughest fight was with Gilbert Burns you know and Gilbert Burns hurt him a few times. If, let’s say, I would have to get ready to fight in a hypothetical world against Khamzat, we have to look at all those videos of what he does well and what he doesn’t do so well.”

He described Khamzat using his tall frame in his style, which is unusual since most wrestlers are stocky.

“He’s very tall and he fights tall and he’s a wrestler which is not really common. Normally wrestlers fight more short.”

GSP said that looping punches and other such strikes from a shorter opponent are the key to neutralizing someone like Khamzat. He talked about the Burns matchup and how ‘Durinho’ was able to hurt him with this strategy.

“Sometimes when you fight tall and you’re taller than your opponent in the striking department because you’re looking down, you’re gonna have a harder time to see the punches that are coming like a looping punch, like an overhand and things like this.”

“When he fought Gilbert Burns, those are the punches that hurt him because he was much taller.”

Of course, GSP also said that “it’s easy to say [these things] when you’re sitting down and you’re talking, but it’s harder [to implement them] when you fight.”