Khamzat Chimaev says light heavyweight move will come after one UFC middleweight title defense
Chimaev has set his sights on light heavyweight gold in the future
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1 min read
UFC middleweight champion Khamzat Chimaev does not plan to remain in the 185-pound division for long. Chimaev told ESPN that he will make one defense of his championship before jumping to light heavyweight in pursuit of a championship in a second division.
Chimaev won the middleweight championship at UFC 319, using his dominant wrestling and smothering top game to easily dispatch of Dricus Du Plessis. Challenging fights have been few and far between for Chimaev, who exploded onto the scene with two wins in 10 days at "Fight Island" in July 2020.
Chimaev bounced between welterweight and middleweight until settling in at 185 pounds, where he defeated former welterweight champion Kamaru Usman and former middleweight champ Robert Whittaker before his championship-grabbing performance against Du Plessis.
"These [middleweight] fights don't make me excited, but I need to do my job," Chimaev said. "I need to make money. If there is a big name to make more money, then I will be excited. If you get $3 million for a fight, but then you have a good [opponent], and you make $6 million, of course you'll be excited."
Rather than return to welterweight in pursuit of a second belt, Chimaev said that a move to light heavyweight would follow his first middleweight title defense, with designs on a bout with two-time -- and current -- 205-pound champion Alex Pereira.
"That's a good fight for me," Chimaev said of facing Pereira. "Everyone knows that. The UFC knows that. The UFC doesn't want to give me this guy. And this guy said, 'Oh, I'll come to you and [have a grappling match].' Grappling is not our job. UFC is our job. He said he could fight Du Plessis [when Du Plessis was the champion], he accepted that fight. But now he says, 'Khamzat is not a good fight for me.'"
Pereira comes from a kickboxing background, and while he has developed decent takedown defense, wrestling is still likely the weakest dimension of his game. Chimaev averages 5.29 takedowns per 15 minutes of Octagon time, making the perspective of a smaller man with tremendous wrestling against the thunderous strikes of Pereira an intriguing potential fight.
