Khamzat Chimaev isn’t fighting this weekend but he’s still making headlines. Since smashing his way to a third win in 66 days last weekend at UFC Vegas 11, where he knocked out Gerald Meerschaert after only 17 seconds, the 26 year old took to Twitter to put the top contenders in the UFC’s welterweight division on blast.
Not content with calling out the best guys in the welterweight division, Chimaev is also taking aim at the top UFC middleweights. Including the champion, Israel Adesanya. Asked after his latest win how he would fare against the ‘The Last Stylebender’ and the 170lbs champion Kamaru Usman, ‘Borz’ stated that he would finish both champions.
“If I do my hard work, nobody’s a challenge for,” Chimaev said at the UFC Vegas 11 post-fight press conference. “I’m going to stop both guys.”
Adesanya is set to defend his middleweight title against Paulo Costa this weekend at UFC 253. Speaking to Yahoo! Sports (as transcribed by MMA Fighting) ahead of the main event, the Nigerian born Kiwi revealed that he hasn’t seen Chimaev fight yet.
“I don’t even know the guy,” Adesanya said. “I haven’t seen his fights yet but I know I just saw the presser and he was on ‘Cowboy’ [Cerrone] and everyone just talking s***. He’s just casting his net. It is what he’s doing. I haven’t actually seen him fight yet.
“Have you seen him fight? The rat lip?” Adesanya asked his manager Tim Simpson. “Tim said he might have fought lower level of competition so far. That’s what Tim said. Fair enough. I’ll see him fight probably this weekend and I’ll make my assessment. So he thinks I’m an easy fight? That’s interesting. Everybody does this when they’re coming up [just talking] casting a wide net. Keep casting.”
Not happy with being called ‘rat lip’, Chimaev took to social media to hit back at Adesanya.
Earlier this week, former two division UFC champion Daniel Cormier predicted that it won’t be long before Chimaev rules the welterweight and middleweight divisions in the UFC.
How do you think Israel Adesanya vs Khamzat Chimaev goes down?
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