“I have heavy hands”- Khamzat Chimaev claims fighters at Tiger Muay Thai refused to spar with him after feeling his power

Khamzat Chimaev has discussed his training at the renowned Tiger Muay Thai gym in Phuket, Thailand. ‘Borz’ claimed that some fighters have been reluctant to spar with him.

In a recent interaction with RT Sport MMA, the UFC welterweight offered fans some insight into the kind of notoriety he had earned on the mats of Tiger Muay Thai. He revealed that his training partners avoided sparring with him due to his “heavy hands.”

The No.11-ranked 170lber revealed he strongly believed in conducting hard sparring sessions to best simulate and replicate the situations that arise during official fights inside the cage.

“For the most part I still worked with heavyweights and 205ers. I don’t want to speak highly of myself, but I have heavy hands so some guys don’t want to spar with me. Here at [Tiger Muay Thai] I’ve had some sparring sessions and the guys don’t want to spar me again. I have a different approach: when I spar I do it the tough way. Look at all great boxers, they never had light sparring.”

Check out Khamzat Chimaev’s interaction with RT Sport MMA right here:

He further admitted that while he did spar with fighters closer to his weight, including lightweights, light heavyweights and heavyweights were the ones who were more open to competing against him.

It seems his desire to push himself and others to their limits unfortunately results in fighters from smaller weight classes refusing to compete against him.

Khamzat Chimaev highlights biggest problem he faced at Tiger Muay Thai

In the same interview, Khamzat Chimaev detailed one of the biggest problems he’s faced during his stay in Thailand. He admitted that his training sessions were almost always being filmed by bystanders, revealing his trade secrets to his opponents.

“Also it’s hard to keep any secrets here. Everybody has a camera. Everytime I am doing padwork or rolling, everyone around start filming. Kind of mess here in the gym. I don’t get it.”

‘Borz’ argued that the overwhelming number of amateur fighters training at the gym compared to pro fighters was the main reason behind this problem.

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He further argued that the gym’s seemingly lenient policy regarding filming sessions did nothing to persuade onlookers to avoid shooting videos and sharing them on social media.