Khamzat Chimaev is planning to stay on the bench until the UFC middleweight title picture sorts itself out. According to comments relayed by MMA Junkie and circulated Friday by Championship Rounds on X, Chimaev wants to sit out and wait for the winner of Sean Strickland vs. Nassourdine Imavov rather than take another fight in the meantime.
He was blunt about why he thinks he’s owed the shot.
“I should fight the winner [of Strickland vs Imavov] because I’m the #1 contender. I didn’t lose that match. I’m the real champion.”
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That’s three claims in three sentences, and only one of them (the contender part) is the kind of thing a matchmaker can act on. The “didn’t lose that match” line tells you Chimaev is still disputing a result on his record, and he isn’t interested in pretending otherwise. The comments that surfaced Friday didn’t include a date for Strickland vs. Imavov, so how long his wait would last is an open question.
Where the belt stands
Strickland is the current UFC middleweight champion, and his week has been loud even by his standards. On Wednesday, Joaquin Buckley posted video of himself and an associate confronting Strickland over his use of a racial slur at a recent Brandrisk Promotions event, as MMA Fighting reported. Strickland answered by posting an old sparring clip of himself dropping Buckley, captioned “Sit down Buckley,” per Championship Rounds. Spinnin Backfist also shared footage in which Strickland, after Buckley asked if he wanted to box, tried to defuse things by offering to help Buckley with his wrestling. That’s a strange olive branch from a man about to defend a belt, but it’s very Strickland.
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Imavov is the challenger in that matchup. Chimaev’s position is simple: whoever leaves that cage with the strap should be looking across at him next.
The broader middleweight and welterweight chatter hasn’t helped anyone trying to jump the line. MMA Fighting’s Friday Morning Report noted that Henry Cejudo and Kamaru Usman roasted Colby Covington after an embarrassing 43-second loss, with the headline quoting the jab, “He’s supposed to beat Khamzat Chimaev?” When the guys being floated around your name are getting finished in under a minute, waiting for a title shot starts to look less like stubbornness and more like math.
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Quick take
I get the logic, and I don’t love it. Sitting out works when the champion and the challenger both stay healthy, make weight without drama, and the fight lands on a reasonable date. That’s a lot of variables to bet a prime year on. Chimaev’s wrestling is the most dangerous thing in the division when he’s fresh, and a fighter with that kind of chain-wrestling pressure loses something real every month he isn’t in the cage working on what happens after the first takedown. If he believes he’s the real champion, the fastest way to prove it is a title fight, sure. But the UFC rarely builds its schedule around one man’s patience, and if Strickland vs. Imavov slips, Chimaev may find the matchmakers knocking with a different name. My pick is that he holds out exactly as long as the UFC lets him, and not a day longer.