Khamzat Chimaev has had an explosive rise to title contention in the UFC. He proved he was the real deal when he defeated welterweight veteran Gilbert Burns at UFC 273. Khamzat trained with numerous athletes while preparing for the bout.
One of them was light heavyweight star, Jiri Prochazka. Khamzat reportedly injured the former 205-pound champion while in training. He broke his rib, which Prochazka confirmed was true.
Prochazka described the state of his rib as “not broken completely”. He also said that he didn’t feel the injury when it took place during sparring. Prochazka described the sparring session as a successful one, saying that it “was in [his] hands”.
He described Khamzat as a good athlete, but nothing extraordinary based on their training session.
“I think he’s a good guy, very good, good wrestling, good cardio, but nothing I think, nothing so so much special,”
Meanwhile, Khamzat has a slightly different version of the story. He gave an interview where he said that Prochazka was stupid and a bad sparring partner.
“He cheats on the guy he fights. I don’t like such things. I told my friends about my sparring with him. One time he broke his rib, he fell down and left. ”
As it turns out Procazhka was telling a mutual that he had won in sparring:
“He said that he won. I asked him what he won. He said that he broke his rib, he fell down and left.”
The two seem to have known each other before Procazhka was in the UFC. This apparently all took place while Procazhka was preparing to face Muhammed Lawal in Rizin (April 2019).
“He wanted to work with me. I fought him. He did good in stand up. I had bad stand up, it was the beginning of my career. He beat me in the stand up. I fought him, did some wrestling. I beat him. He didn’t win against me in sparring.”
“I can even shake on it. My managers, coaches, guys, Alex never lies. You can ask them. We made a bag out of him. He is talking now. He won. I told him to come back and we will make a guy.”
Chimaev went on to say that he’s only interested in going up against Prochazka if he has the belt and went on to call him ‘stupid’.
“If he has a belt, I’m interested in him. If not, he is stupid.”
Chimaev went on to slam Prochazka:
“He’s stupid. You should learn your tradition. You should be worthy of your people. I always try to find the history. I want to know my homeland. I’m not interested in other people. Everyone should be worthy of his people.”
Prochazka is still ranked number one in his weight class. However, he recently lost his number 10 spot in the UFC P4P rankings.to the returning Jon Jones. He’ll likely return sometime late in 2023.
As for Chimaev, he’s rumored to be in negotiations to face Robert Whittaker.