Khamzat Chimaev thinks Gilbert Burns is scared of him.
The surging UFC welterweight and middleweight put ‘Durinho’ on blast for hiring two ‘secret’ Russian wrestlers to help him prepare for ‘Borz’ on April 9.
As the matchup inches closer to reality, Chimaev thinks Burns is getting more desperate with each passing day.
“He’s said, ‘Maybe we’re going to wrestle, maybe we’re going to grapple, maybe we’re going to come in with strikes.’ He doesn’t know what I’m going to do,” Chimaev said of Burns during a recent appearance on The MMA Hour (h/t MMA Fighting). “He’s stressed. Now he has big drama in his head [that] he thinks about. When you listen to him, you understand — the guy is done. He said, ‘I have two secret Russian wrestlers.’
“How you f****** learn wrestling in two months, two or three months? Never. In his dreams, he can’t take me down. He knows that. The guys that have been in my gym — like some guys that [also] train there with him, they’ve been in my gym — I don’t know what they told him, but I beat them all and he knows about that. He’s scared.”
Chimaev (10-0 MMA, 4-0 UFC) forecasts an easy victory against Burns (20-4 MMA, 13-4 UFC) at UFC 273 and believes a win over the No. 2-ranked welterweight should catapult him into title contention and set up a championship showdown against Kamaru Usman.
“I think I have to fight for the title,” Chimaev said. “Who is the next guy out there? Ten fights, 10 finishes. After [the Burns fight], 11 fights, 11 finishes. And what are they going to say? The guy is No. 2 in the rankings. Now they talk about, ‘Oh, you didn’t fight somebody in the rankings.’ Now, if I beat this guy — No. 2 — what are you going to say?”
“I feel [like] I could kill everybody, brother,” he added. “I am the greatest of all-time, brother. I am the best.”
UFC 273, which will feature Burns vs. Chimaev on the main card, is scheduled to take place on April 9 at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida.
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