Khamzat Chimaev Says He Does Not Consider Himself a Loser
Khamzat Chimaev still does not see himself as a beaten fighter, even after the first loss of his professional career. Speaking ahead of this weekend’s wrestling appearance, the former UFC middleweight champion drew a hard line between a loss on the scorecards and giving up.
The comments came via Real American Freestyle, which is promoting Chimaev’s RAF Moscow main event against former UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley on Saturday. They are the clearest look yet at how he is processing what happened against Sean Strickland.
“I don’t consider myself a loser. When you don’t give up, you don’t lose. I train everyday. I’ve been doing this my whole life, since I was 5 years old. I provide for my family.”
That is not a protest of the decision. It is Chimaev defining the loss on his own terms four months after Strickland took his belt.
The two met in the UFC 328 main event on May 9 at Prudential Center in Newark. Strickland won a split decision, 48-47, 47-48, 48-47, and became a two-time UFC middleweight champion.
Chimaev entered that night 15-0. He left 15-1, with his unbeaten record and the 185-pound title both gone after five close rounds.
Strickland (31-7) has not fought since. A shoulder injury delayed his first title defense, while Chimaev has stayed visible on the wrestling mats instead of waiting in silence.
The former champion’s framing matters because the Newark fight was never a blowout. Two of three judges had it for Strickland, one had it for Chimaev, and the fifth round decided the belt.
Chimaev is not asking the public to reverse that result. He is saying the loss does not change the work, the routine, or the reason he competes.
Wrestling is the through line he keeps pointing to. He said he has trained every day since he was 5, a claim that matches a career built first on the mats as a three-time Swedish national champion before he became a UFC titleholder.
That background is why the RAF dates are more than a side job. They put him back in the sport he grew up in while the UFC middleweight picture remains unsettled.
Saturday’s match is his second under the Real American Freestyle banner. He made his debut on June 13 at RAF 10, pinning Dillon Danis in 44 seconds, the fastest pin in promotion history.
Woodley is a different assignment. The former welterweight champion is coming off an RAF win over Joaquin Buckley, his first combat sports victory of any kind since 2018.
The event was moved this week from VTB Arena to Mytishchi Arena in Moscow Oblast. It remains RAF’s first show in Russia and is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 5.
Chimaev already has another wrestling date after that. He is booked to meet Gilbert Burns in the co-main event of RAF 13 on Sept. 18 at the Watsco Center in Coral Gables, Florida, a rematch of their UFC 273 fight.
Burns has retired from MMA. The September date still keeps Chimaev active while his next UFC opponent is unbooked.
Official rankings still have him at No. 1 at middleweight, with Strickland as champion. That is the gap between how the division is ordered and how Chimaev is talking about himself.
He has not been idle in the title conversation. In recent days he said he would take the winner of a rumored December defense between Strickland and Nassourdine Imavov, and he has named other ranked names as options.
None of that changes the Newark result. It does show a fighter who is refusing to treat one split decision as the end of the story.
The family line in his comments is the other piece. Chimaev presented training and fighting as the job that supports the people around him, not as a referendum on whether he is finished.
That is a different tone from the immediate aftermath of UFC 328, when his team said he was obsessed with an immediate rematch. The work has continued, but the belt has not come back with it.
For now, the next test is on the mat, not in the Octagon. Chimaev meets Woodley on Saturday in Moscow, then turns toward Burns two weeks later in Florida.
A UFC return will still be the fight that decides whether this stretch was a holding pattern or a launch. Until that booking comes, he is training, competing, and declining to wear the loss as an identity.