Khamzat Chimaev has decided he’s still the middleweight champion, whatever the official record says, and he’d like the UFC to hold a spot for him while everyone else sorts it out.
Speaking to MMA Junkie, in comments circulated on X by Championship Rounds, Chimaev said he wants to wait for the winner of Sean Strickland vs. Nassourdine Imavov instead of taking another fight in the meantime. His reasoning was short. “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.”
Yahoo Sports framed it as Chimaev being hungry to regain UFC gold. The word regain matters. MMA Fighting refers to him as a former UFC middleweight champion. So this is a guy who had the belt, doesn’t have it now, and doesn’t accept the result that cost him. He didn’t specify which fight he was talking about, and I’m not going to fill in the blanks for him.
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A crowded division with a messy top
The 185-pound title picture already has enough going on. Strickland holds the belt and is in a contract dispute with the UFC, and MMA Mania noted that one UFC middleweight believes the promotion could strip him over it. Imavov is the other name in the fight Chimaev wants to wait on. If the champion’s paperwork falls apart before that bout happens, Chimaev’s plan to sit and watch gets a lot more complicated.
There’s also a little irony in the timing. Dana White recently said big paydays have drained the young, hungry drive out of stars, and he named Islam Makhachev, Ilia Topuria and Chimaev specifically. “When guys are young and hungry, they want to fight a lot because they want to get paid,” White said, in a clip shared by Home of Fight. A few days later Chimaev is publicly asking to sit out. Draw your own conclusions.
He’s not sitting still, exactly
Chimaev does have a date on the calendar, just not in the Octagon. He wrestles Colby Covington in the main event of RAF Abu Dhabi on November 14. Covington arrives in rough shape after Raul Rosas Jr., a bantamweight, submitted him with a rear-naked choke in 43 seconds at a Hype Fighting submission-only event in Italy.
Henry Cejudo had the obvious reaction on his Pound 4 Pound podcast. “Look at this motherfcker, and he’s supposed to beat Khamzat Chimaev next fcking week?” Kamaru Usman, who beat Covington twice in title fights, said on the same show that Covington “was not ready for that level of intensity.”
Chimaev’s name keeps coming up on the mats, too. Rizvan Magomedov, Makhachev’s manager, listed Chimaev alongside Covington and Usman as possible wrestling opponents for the welterweight champ.
My take: I like a fighter who answers the question straight, and Chimaev did. He thinks he’s the champ and wants the belt back. But calling yourself the real champion while asking to wait is a tough sell when the actual champion is fighting with his own employer and the boss is already grumbling about rich guys who don’t want to fight. The cleanest argument Chimaev can make is to smash Covington on November 14 in a way that makes waiting look like a formality instead of a request.
