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“I was thinking that I would catch him in the streets or at the gym and beat him up. This is what he deserved.” Chimaev said.
Breakout star Khamzat Chimaev has described the time he flew to Ireland to try and beat up Conor McGregor for his comments about Khabib Nurmagomedov and Chechnya.
Arguably the hottest prospect at the moment in the UFC, Chimaev (8-0) won two fights in the space of ten days on “Fight Island”, stopping both Rhys McKee and John Phillips. “Borz” recently spoke to Adam Zubayraev about the time he flew to Ireland in 2018 to confront McGregor for his comments.
“At that time, I was fighting as an amateur or a pro record of 1-0 when that happened,” Chimaev said. “It is that time when he insulted Khabib, and he also was talking about Zubaira (Tukhugov). At that time, nobody knew who I was.
“He was also talking about another guy who’s also Chechen. I don’t remember his name, but he told us he knocked him out in a sparring session. My mind was blowing up at the moment, but I’m living here very close to him. I was thinking that I would catch him in the streets or at the gym and beat him up. This is what he deserved.”
Chimaev was stopped by the authorities when he arrived and left Ireland. “Borz” said he pretended he was visiting the country to help McGregor to prepare for his fight with Nurmagomedov at UFC 229, but his real intentions were to cause ‘physical harm’ to the former champion. McGregor lost to Nurmagomedov in their October 2018 fight by fourth-round submission.
“I landed in Ireland and waited in an airport,” Chimaev said. “First, they stopped me a while, and then slightly they told me to go. Then I was going out. When I was going out from the airport, they stopped me again. That time, there were guys literally in uniform. … Yes, there were (special forces), and they told me, ‘You cannot go anywhere.’ But I didn’t get what they meant. At that time, my English was very bad. Even right now, it’s not that good. … They drove me to the police station and kept me for eight hours.”
Despite only fighting twice in the UFC, Chimaev has received huge amounts of praise with Dana White even stating the Chechen born Swede ‘maybe’ ready to fight current welterweight champion Kamaru Usman.