King Green has seen it all in his 54-fight career and he’d love to see less of Islam Makhachev and Khamzat Chimaev.
Fresh off of a third straight win at UFC 328, Green appeared on the Love & War show where he criticized Makhachev and Chimaev for their grappling-heavy styles. Both fighters recently utilized dominant wrestling attacks to record championship victories, with Makhachev moving up from lightweight to defeat welterweight champion Jack Della Maddalena, and Chimaev grounding Dricus du Plessis
for five rounds to claim the middleweight title (and then subsequently lose it to Sean Strickland).
Green has long been known as one of MMA’s more entertaining characters, which is why he gets frustrated seeing wrestlers like Makhachev and Chimaev prioritize victory over all else.
“I get into it a lot with the wrestlers, like the Russian guys,” Green said. “I’m trying to explain to them, they’re competitors. They’re not making art.
“They’re not trying to make something timeless that this is a great fight that I actually want to go back and watch later on. … I feel like Chimaev, Islam’s last fights, those were some of the most horrible title fights I’ve ever seen.”
Green and Makhachev have a history, with the two sharing the octagon in February 2022. Makhachev scored a first-round finish of Green, who stepped in as a replacement for an injured Beneil Dariush.
While known primarily for his standup styling, Green showed off his own wrestling chops in his win over Jeremy Stephens at UFC 328. Late in the first round, he expertly took Stephens to the mat before eventually securing a rear-naked choke submission. Green points out that the difference between him and other wrestlers is that when he grapples, he’s always hunting for a finish.
“I had this big-ass argument with Joe [Rogan], Joe’s like, ‘I like the grappling and stuff,’” Green said. “Yeah, I get that, there’s nothing wrong with those things, but personally, I never wrestled. I never really wrestled. I can wrestle, the first thing I did, my base is wrestling. But I understood that the audience isn’t looking for that. The audience is looking for the knockouts, those are the things that they want to see, so we have to put those things away.
“So I wasn’t knocking those guys who do those things, but I’m like, ‘If you’re going to do those things, you need to make them exciting.’ Now lately I’ve been showing I can wrestle because they’ve been clowning me and saying, ‘Send him to Dagestan, send him to Dagestan,’ ‘I can’t wrestle, I can’t wrestle.’ It’s like, no, I never even really think about wrestling because I’m thinking more so about fighting, but now I’ll show you if I’m going to do that style, this is what it’s supposed to look like. You’ll see me get on top, I don’t waste no time trying to hit you. I don’t waste time at all. I’m going after you, where I’ll see guys hugging and in positions and just kind of stalemating each other out. No, there’s still supposed to be action there that makes the viewer want to see that, too.”
Since making his pro debut 18 years ago, Green has compiled a 35-17 pro record, and has not strung together more than three consecutive wins in his UFC career. Given the competition he’s faced and some of the exciting results he’s produced, he scoffs at the notion that his record defines his success as a fighter.
“The viewer only understands win and loss,” Green said. “The viewer only understands, ‘Why you have this many losses and how do you have this many wins?’ That’s all they understand.”
