As Khamzat Chimaev‘s stock rose, so did the difficulty of finding an opponent that was both willing to sign on the dotted line and made sense for the undefeated Chechen.
Khamzat Chimaev’s last appearance inside the Octagon came in September when a botched weight cut forced the UFC to shuffle around their UFC 279 card to avoid a potential cancellation. Since then, Khamzat Chimaev has been seemingly calling out everyone at the top of both the welterweight and middleweight divisions, but thus far nobody has answered the call. Chimaev’s coach Andreas Michael recently made an appearance on Submission Radio, sharing his fighter’s frustration over the lack of competitors willing to step up and accept the fight under reasonable terms.
“Yeah, it has [been frustrating] actually, because we’re used to getting fights back-to-back,” he said. “And a lot of people say they want it, but they don’t want it. Or they price themselves out. Like, ‘I want this and that’, and then all of a sudden they want a million dollars when their contract is like 50/50. So, it’s not logical either. That’s the fight game” (h/t MMA Mania).
Michael did clarify that there are plenty of fighters willing to step up and try to make a name for themselves off of Khamzat Chimaev’s popularity, but the only fights that make sense at this point would be against top dogs and titleholders.
“People say they wanna fight but they don’t want to fight. People price themselves out,” he said. “There’s some people that, of course they wanna fight as well, but they don’t make sense. So, there’s a lot of factors [that go] into things. We’re not just gonna fight just for the fight’s sake. Things have to pave the way forward. Of course there’s a lot of people that wanna fight Khamzat. And if he just wanted to, he’d just be like, ‘okay, who’s in the top 20?’. But I think we’re past that, aren’t we?
“I think we need to get the top dogs right now, or go for a title fight. The top dogs. Like, the number one contender or a title fight. And that’s why there’s not a lot of choices out there at the moment, because our spectrum has closed. It was broad before. Now it’s closed down. We’re honing in. We want the number one contender or the champ. Preferably the champ. And I think he’s earned it.”
| Khamzat Chimaev has announced he will not fight during Ramadan, ruling him out of fights in March or April.#UFC #MMA pic.twitter.com/Gxt3ptdmKm
— MMA Orbit (@mma_orbit) February 20, 2023
| Khamzat Chimaev has announced he will not fight during Ramadan, ruling him out of fights in March or April.
Andreas Michael Wants a UFC Title Shot Above All Else for Khamzat Chimaev
Following Alex Pereira’s defeat of Israel Adesanya at UFC 281, rumors began to swirl that Khamzat Chimaev would be the first man to challenge Pereira for his newly won UFC gold. When that fight didn’t materialize, ‘Borz’ turned his attention to former UFC champion and perennial contender Robert Whittaker. As we know, that fight never came together leaving Khamzat Chimaev on the sidelines waiting for the next offer from the UFC.
“For me, guys, I would prefer a title shot,” he told Submission Radio. “You know, just go right to the meat and potatoes. So, I just want to go for it directly, if I had to choose. But Robert Whitaker didn’t have a fight. He was one of the few that was free at the moment, but that didn’t materialize either for different reasons. And I just think that the guy’s looking for a fight. An amazing guy. Amazing. And a great fighter as well. A great fighter. So, he was just putting the dots together.
“And Khamzat wanted it. He wants to fight everyone, actually. So, we have to pull the reins in a little bit. And that’s our job. That’s our job to make sense of everything happening and guide him in the right place.”
Currently, Khamzat Chimaev is focusing on his religion and has no intentions of returning until after Ramadan which runs from March 22 to April 21. Upon his return, ‘Borz’ will likely be eyeing a matchup with the winner Edwards vs. Usman III on March 18 or Pereira vs. Adesanya II on April 8.