Jump to
Khamzat Chimaev’s UFC run has been notable for its ambition. He was targeting a title shot against middleweight champ Sean Strickland before his UFC 294 opponent was even set.
And now he hasn’t even won the middleweight title and he’s already talking about jumping up in weight to challenge top light heavyweights. I guess that’s better than trying to make 170 pounds at welterweight which was a serious struggle for him.
Khamzat Chimaev dreams of Jon Jones fight
Meanwhile, the current UFC heavyweight champ (and light heavyweight GOAT) Jon Jones is in the middle of a vigorous debate about who he should fight next, ex-champ Stipe Miocic or interim champ Tom Aspinall.
Although the Miocic fight seems nearly certain and the Aspinall matchup makes a lot of sense, there is one wild idea I doubt anyone has considered. Well, at least not anyone other than Khamzat Chimaev.
“Jon Jones still is the best fighter in the world right now,” Chimaev said in a recent interview (transcript via 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). 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.”
Khamzat Chimaev confident he’d beat Jon Jones
For all his big talk, people pay attention to Chimaev’s blabbing becaue he has never lost, even when taking bigger and bigger steps up in competition.
That kind of success is likely a major factor behind his unflappable confidence. In fact, Chimaev is so confident he’s certain he’d beat Jones, even if they fought at heavyweight.
“Depends which weight class,” Chimaev said, before making his call. “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. 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.”
Chimaev moved back up to middleweight and returned from a year layoff to beat former welterweight champ Kamaru Usman.
I guess while we are waiting to hear who Chimaev fights next we can enjoy the wild speculation.