Breakout star Khamzat Chimaev is set to face Leon Edwards at UFC Fight Night on March 13th, but admits that he hasn’t watched a lot of his fights.
Chimaev and Edwards were booked to fight on two different occasions in the past two months, at UFC Vegas 17 in December and UFC Fight Island 8 in January, but the fights were scrapped due to COVID issues.
Dominating Edwards And Usman
Edwards has been fighting in the UFC since 2014, but Chimaev, who made his MMA debut 2018 and is relatively new to the sport, says he isn’t interested in watching footage of the Brit’s past bouts.
Speaking to Frontkick Online, ‘Borz’ revealed that he has only watched highlights of Edwards’ loss to Usman in 2015, adding that he would dominate both of them in an MMA fight.
“I’ve never seen Edwards fight, I’ve only seen highlights of Usman beating him,” Chimaev said. “Highlights on YouTube, something like that. If Usman won like that, I’ll demolish him. He has no knockout power or anything special at all. I’ll dominate both him and Usman. Inshallah (God willing). Soon.”
‘Collecting Heads’
Despite sitting at number 15 in the welterweight rankings, Chimaev is confident that he is going to run through the number three ranked Edwards, and then “collect every head” in the division.
“I want to smash him, brother,” Chimaev stated. “I want to destroy him. I want to take his head, And collect every head like this. I have nine right now, but soon I’ll have ten. Then we’ll continue collecting more.”
Chimaev had to pull out of his scheduled UFC Fight Island 8 bout with Edwards due to COVID-related complications, but he is fully recovered now, and is putting in more effort than usual in training to prepare for his first five-round main event.
“Now I’m back to 100%. My lungs are good,” Chimaev revealed. “Strength and conditioning is great. You’ve seen how hard we work on cardio. We work hard day after day. I’ve always worked hard, but I’ve never trained for five rounds before. Now I train extra hard with longer sessions.”
Edwards has not fought since his decision win against Rafael dos Anjos at UFC Texas in mid-2019. Chimaev on the other hand, has been on a tear since signing with the UFC, winning all three of his fights in a dominant fashion.
Who do you think wins the welterweight showdown between Khamzat Chimaev and Leon Edwards next month?
See also:
