Khamzat Chimaev is open to fighting literally anybody.
“Borz” has teased willingness to battle it out with former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Heavyweight champion, Brock Lesnar, in the past (like Jim Miller is doing presently). Whether you’re holding gold at Middleweight, Light Heavyweight, or Heavyweight, you aren’t safe from Chimaev, and that now includes Jon Jones.
“Jon Jones still is the best fighter in the world right now,” Chimaev told Smile 2 Jannah (h/t MMA Junkie). “He has most title defenses, he’s a two-weight class champion, he never lost still. He’s the youngest champion in UFC [history]. If you speak about MMA, everyone knows Jon Jones. In history, [there is] nobody like him.
“So for sure, he’s dream match for everyone who wants to be in the history [books],” he continued. “I’m younger than him. I hope he’s not going to go soon from this job, get this fight as well. When I [grew] up — I like him, I like his training. I watched his training, I learned a lot of stuff from him. We spoke about training so we can maybe train together. He’s a nice guy. We were speaking and joking around.”
The undefeated 13-0 Chimaev has fought exclusively at Welterweight and Middleweight, and recently returned to the latter in his last fight at UFC 294 in October 2023. Chimaev earned a majority decision win over the former Welterweight champion, Kamaru Usman, in his last time out, therefore, landing him in the division’s rankings. He expects to next challenge the winner of the 185-pound title fight between the champion, Sean Strickland, and top contender, Dricus Du Plessis, at UFC 297 this weekend (Sat., Jan. 20, 2024).
Regardless of the size difference between Chimaev and the Heavyweight champion, Jones, the Middleweight contender would expect to get the job done as he’s done 13 times prior.
“Depends which weight class,” Chimaev said. “He’s now a Heavyweight. You’re asking me? For sure I think I will win. That’s a hard fight for everyone. He fought two times with my training partner Alexander Gustafsson — they had good fight.
“So I become a fighter with Alex, been training with him,” he continued. “For sure I want to fight with [Jones] so it will be a big history if we fight. Since Alex gave him the best fight in history, now maybe it’s my time to fight him, as well.”