Khamzat Chimaev finally lived up to his early promise on Saturday night, utterly dominating Dricus du Plessis to claim the UFC middleweight championship at UFC 319.

Chimaev won by unanimous decision having been in complete control throughout the contest, landing a UFC-record 529 strikes on his South African opponent.

Du Plessis – who was making the third defense of his belt – had no answer to Chimaev’s grappling and found himself on the mat within the opening minute of the fight. He survived that time, but ended up being taken down again in each of the following rounds.

Chimaev was particularly dominant in the third round, landing 156 strikes – more than three times as many as du Plessis managed in the entire fight.

Despite having 21 minutes and 40 seconds of control time – the sec

See Full Page