Khamzat Chimaev has ramped up his pursuit of newly-crowned middleweight champion Alex Pereira by repeatedly calling him out on social media.
This reinstates Chimaev’s intention to step up to the middleweight division after he failed to make weight for a welterweight bout against Nate Diaz at UFC 278.
Fellow middleweight contender Paulo Costa offered his take on a potential matchup between Chimaev and Pereira.
He spoke in an interview with Submission Radio and mentioned that ‘Borz’ was a smart fighter and could hold the advantage against ‘Poatan’.
Costa talked about Khamzat Chimaev’s superior ability on the ground and stated the vast difference between mixed martial arts and Pereira’s former practice, kickboxing:
“He [Chimaev] want to beat Alex [Pereira] in Rio. He smart! I think if he fought Alex, it will be a big problem to Alex because Alex has no grapple, you know. MMA, brother. It’s so different of kickboxing. I think the odds is against Alex if the fight happens. But I don’t think he will be down, I don’t think that the fight will happen.”
Although Costa believes that the two fighters will not meet in the octagon, he wouldn’t mind squaring up with his compatriot himself. However, he was not entertained by Pereira:
“I try to fight him [Pereira]. I ask him to fight him couple weeks ago, he said, ‘No, are you still 170 [pounds]? Are you not go to 185 [pounds]?’ but he saw huge opportunity to get the belt easily.”
Watch Paulo Costa’s full interview with Submission Radio on YouTube:
Khamzat Chimaev wants to fight both Alex Pereira and Colby Covington
Khamzat Chimaev does not mind alternating between the welterweight and middleweight divisions.
The Chechen-born Swede is prepared to take on anyone with momentum ever on his side. Chimaev has hinted at moving up to middleweight but has not ruled out fighting at welterweight in the future.
He made the comments along the same lines in an interview with Brett Okamoto of ESPN MMA. He demanded to fight Alex Pereira for the middleweight championship and then take on Colby Covington in the lower weight class:
“And I was thinking if [Israel] Adesanya won his fight, who’s he going to fight? There’s only me. And he lost as well. Now [Pereira and Adesanya] want to rematch in March, I don’t know what they’re going to do. So I said to Sean Shelby and Dana as well, I’m ready for Pereira in Brazil. Directly after that, March, if Colby wants to fight, I’d take my title and I’d go down to 170 and fight Colby as well.” [h/t MMA Fighting]
Watch Khamzat Chimaev’s full interview with ESPN MMA on YouTube: