Khamzat Chimaev is now setting his sights on the middleweight category. However, he’s not turning a blind eye to the welterweights who keep mentioning his name.
One such welterweight is the notorious Colby Covington, who recently expressed his desire to face off against Chimaev. While UFC president Dana White had previously indicated that this fight was in the cards, it never came to fruition, leaving Covington as the top contender at 170 pounds. Meanwhile, Chimaev is gearing up for his comeback and is sure to make waves in the middleweight division.
“He’s a f****** joke,” Covington said about Chimaev. “The guy f****** sucks at fighting. He’s unprofessional and I don’t want to ever hear that guy’s name again.”
Colby Covington is not too happy with Khamzat Chimaev, and it all started with Chimaev’s last performance in September. Chimaev was supposed to fight Nate Diaz but ended up taking on Kevin Holland instead because he was too heavy for the welterweight division, tipping the scales at 178.5 pounds. This upset Covington, who has been eyeing a potential matchup with Chimaev for some time.
Chimaev, on the other hand, claims that he tried his best to make the fight happen, but circumstances just didn’t allow it. Now, Chimaev is set to make the permanent shift to middleweight, but Covington is still keeping an eye on him. Fans can’t wait to see what happens next in this heated rivalry between two of the sport’s most exciting fighters.
“Colby’s lying, he doesn’t want to fight,” Chimaev said on his YouTube channel. “I swear with everything I have. I swear with God, I accept the fight four times and all Muslims understand I swear with the Koran. I get a call four times ‘do you want to fight?’ I said yes. I had a conversation with Sean Shelby as well, I can show it, [that] we’re going to fight with this guy and it never happened. There is no more.
“You can lie at press conferences and they make it a show. For me, I can’t lie to people. I am who I am, they like it, they don’t like it, I am who I am. That guy plays too much.”
The drama between Khamzat Chimaev and Colby Covington continues to unfold, with Chimaev claiming that their interactions have been limited to a brief meeting at the UFC Performance Institute in Las Vegas. According to Chimaev, they locked eyes for a moment before Covington reportedly turned and walked away.
“When I see him in the [UFC Performance Institute], when I see [him], he sees me, he turns around,” Chimaev said. “He ran somewhere I didn’t see him anymore.
“If he wants to fight, just come up like me. Try to come up. Everyone’s talking about that, he doesn’t want to fight him — I fight with everybody.”
Chimaev seems to be devoting his attention to middleweight for the time being, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t seize the chance to compete against Covington if it came up.
He thinks that if Covington genuinely wanted to fight him, they could decide on a weight class and make it happen. However, Chimaev is skeptical that this hypothetical pairing of opponents will ever come to pass.
“If he wants to fight, fight,” Chimaev said. “For me, weight class doesn’t matter. If somebody wants the fight — if UFC calls me to fight Brock Lesnar, I’ll fight with him. For me it doesn’t matter, fight everybody, whichever weight class the UFC wants, I’ll fight. I never choose my fights.
“These chickens they lie so much. So many guys speak on the internet ‘I want to fight Khamzat,’ but why am I standing here with no fights for half a year or more now.”
UFC fans are eagerly anticipating Khamzat Chimaev’s return to the octagon, but as of now, the Chechen fighter hasn’t scheduled his next bout.