Khamzat Chimaev‘s UFC 279 weight-cutting fiasco has pushed the narrative that he needs to move up to the middleweight division where a potential matchup against champion Israel Adesanya awaits.
Chimaev’s main event welterweight fight against Nate Diaz was canceled after he turned up at the scale 7.5lbs overweight. He was rescheduled for a catchweight bout against Kevin Holland, which ‘Borz’ won with relative ease in the first round itself.
The Russian-born Swede spoke to Henry Cejudo in an interview in March on Cejudo’s YouTube channel. ‘Triple C’ urged him to move to the middleweight division.
He also suggested that former welterweight champion Kamaru Usman would be a more difficult opponent for Khamzat Chimaev than Israel Adesanya. ‘Borz’ then talked about potentially fighting Adesanya:
“Yeah, I’m ready for him. I still don’t know when I see his last fight, I told the guys, ‘He’s an easy fight for me.’ How he fights, how he fights a guy. It’s like, for me, makes comfortable when I see the fight. He gets taken down and then he gives his back to the guy who’s not a wrestler, not like ground guy.”
He also mentioned ‘Izzy’s’ tendency to fight on his feet and threatened to “take off his head” if given an opportunity:
“All his fights he’s doing only standup. What’s his name? Robert Whittaker take his back. When I see that, if I take his back, I’ll take off his head.”
Nate Diaz claims to have retired Khamzat Chimaev from the middleweight division
Amidst speculation of Khamzat Chimaev’s move up to the middleweight division, the fighter himself teased the move on his Twitter account. Chimaev posted a picture and tweeted:
“185 [fist emoji] [bang emoji]”
He suggested that he would move up the 185-pound division.
Check out his tweet below:
Nate Diaz reacted to the same in an Instagram reply to the post:
“Duh I retired u from 170 dumb f**k”
Check out a screenshot of Diaz’s reply as tweeted out by Chamatkar Sandhu:
Diaz is now looking to sign on for a fight or promotion outside the UFC after his farewell win against Tony Ferguson at UFC 279’s main event. Khamzat Chimaev, meanwhile, will look to push his claim for a title shot after six very impressive fights in the UFC. It remains to be seen if that title shot will come at 170 or 185 pounds.