An Instagram post from MMA fighter Khamzat Chimaev has the world buzzing, wondering if he revealed his retirement at the age of 26 after a battle with COVID-19.
Chimaev wrote a caption in Russian that, when translated, sounds an awful like he’s finished in a career in which he’s gone 9-0-0 — he last fought a middleweight bout against Gerald Meerschaert in September and won in the first round just 17 seconds in.
“I want to say thank you to everyone for their support in my path in this sport,” it reads, per Google Translate. “I think I’m done, yes, I know that I didn’t take the belt, but this is not the most important victory in this life, it may upset you, but my heart and body tell me everything.”
UFC president Dana White said that wasn’t the case, per MMA Junkie. White says it’s due to the treatment he’s received while in Las Vegas recovering from COVID-19:
When he got here, the doctors took care of him, and they put him on prednisone, which is a nasty [expletive] steroid. So he’s on prednisone, and he’s supposed to be taking this thing and chilling, relaxing, and letting himself recover. He went in and [expletive] trained today, felt like [expletive], and got super emotional and posted that.
“He’s not supposed to be training, but you know, this guy’s a savage. He wants to fight like every [expletive] weekend, and now he can’t even train, so he just got emotional and posted that, but he ain’t quitting.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/CL5cum2lU4R/?utm_source=ig_embed
We’ll see in the coming days if that’s really true.
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