Khamzat Chimaev has been compared to Khabib Nurmagomedov since the start of his UFC career.
The comparison is a result of his style being very alike to the retired legend. Chimaev is on a 12 win streak and has never been defeated.
Recently a video has surfaced of him rolling with a female, Josefine Thunder. As a result, Chimaev has received strong criticism from the Muslim community.
Islam does not allow contact with women who one’s not married to. Muslims around the world have called him unfaithful because of his actions.
This act of Khamzat has been compared to Khabib, who is known for not even shaking hands with women and not looking into the eyes of women during interviews. At AKA, Khabib has trained alongside female mixed martial artists but has always been dismissive of them publicly.
In an interview, the Dagestani was asked if he had advice for female athletes, he said: “Be a fighter inside your home. All the time, finish your husband, smash him really bad”.
Although he was bad-mouthed for his remarks, Khabib was just being faithful to the views of his religion.
Khamzat has not given any response to the criticism regarding the video, but he has also never pretended to be very religious. In terms of being conservative, he cannot be compared to the likes of Khabib or UFC Lightweight champion Islam Makhachev.
This isn’t the first time Khamzat has faced controversy for being around women in general.
As far as rolling with women is concerned, Khabib isn’t the only Muslim who’s received bad press.
In fact, Georges St Pierre’s infamous coach Firas Zahabi has also talked about not sparring with female mixed martial artists he trains.
Zahabi once said:
“I personally as a trainer, as a coach, I never roll with my female students.”
He talked about when a new girl joined his gym and asked him to roll with him, but Zahabi replied in the negative.
“One time I had a situation where I was sitting down on the mat and some girl walked up to me. She was from another school with a club and she asked me would you like to roll? I said I’m sorry, I can’t roll with you.”
Zahabi went on to insist that said student revealed her previous experience led her into an inappropriate relationship with the instructor.
“Then she proceeds to tell me that her rolling with her other instructor ended up having a sexual relationship with Him.”