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Thursday, Oct 29, 2020

Chris Weidman Outlines Why he Wants to Fight Khamzat Chimaev

Chris Weidman (photo via UFC / YouTube)

By FCF Staff

Chris Weidman won’t be the next person to face Khamzat Chimaev, but recently the former middleweight champ outlined why he’s interested in facing the rising star.

Chimaev has been making some serious waves in the UFC, after making his Octagon debut this past July. The Chechen born, Swedish fighter became the first fighter in UFC history to win two bouts in ten days (not including tournaments).

Last month, Chimaev followed up on the historic wins by knocking out middleweight Gerald Meerschaert in just 17 seconds.

Not long ago, Weidman relayed that he’s willing to fight Chimaev, as the UFC was looking to book his next bout. But, ultimately, Chimaev was scheduled to fight welterweight contender Leon Edwards, December 19th.

While speaking with Submission Radio recently, about his interest in facing Chimaev (9-0), Weidman (15-5) said this (quotes via MMA Junkie).

“They offered me Chimaev. I said yes,” Weidman said. “Then I started getting really excited about it, and then I said, ‘Well, so I’ve got a little bit of a rib injury right now – a cartilage rib injury.’ And if you’re anybody who’s had that, it’s just a pain in the ass. You’ve got to be really careful with not re-injuring it or bothering it. So I’ve kind of got to work around that right now. So I told them, ‘I’m down to fight whoever at mid-January, but I really want that Chimaev fight,’ just because of everyone acting as if everyone is scared of him and all that. And to me, I always want to fight the best guys. And so if everybody thinks he’s that good, let’s see it.

“I have a hard time imagining anybody throwing me around. In any of my losses, it wasn’t like a dominant win. It was holy crap, out of nowhere, and fights that I was winning, other than my (Dominick) Reyes fight. And so I just have a hard time seeing anybody manhandling me and throwing me around. I just can’t imagine that happening. I would love to see that if that’s what everybody thinks that he could do. So that kind of excited me. But next thing I know, he’s fighting the No. 3 guy at welterweight.”

Weidman is coming off a decision win over Omari Akhmedov in August and has gone 2-3 in his last five bouts.

posted by FCF Staff @ 11:28 am
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