Champions chasing titles in two divisions didn’t used to be so common. There was B.J. Penn, Randy Couture, and then Conor McGregor happened. Since the McGregor era, Amanda Nunes, Georges St-Pierre, Daniel Cormier, Alex Pereira, Jon Jones, Henry Cejudo and Ilia Topuria have accomplished the feat. Islam Makhachev will try at UFC 322.
Middleweight titleholder Khamzat Chimaev would also like to become a two-division UFC champion and believes he matches up well against light heavyweight knockout artist Alex Pereira.
“If you ask me, of course I would love to fight for the second belt,” Chimaev said on the Badaev Podcast (h/t Red Corner MMA). “It’s no secret, the guy who’s got the belt at 205 pounds now is a very good matchup for me, except for should I get reckless standing with him.
“They say he has a lot of power, but I’ve never been edged out in that area,” Chimaev continued. “He used to fight at 185, too, and then moved up to 205. So I would like to fight at light heavyweight.”
Related: Sean Strickland: ‘I’m the only one that beats Khamzat Chimaev’
Chimaev won the 185-pound championship at UFC 319 in August, dominating then-champion Dricus Du Plessis. He hasn’t defended the belt yet, so he has some work to do at middleweight. He doesn’t care who the fight promotion pits against next him as long as the checks have the right amount of zeros.
“Whether they give me Nassourdine [Imavov], [Reinier] de Ridder, or [Anthony] Hernandez, I don’t care. Just pay me some good money,” Chimaev said “I have always been like that. If you consider yourself the best, you shouldn’t care who you have to fight.”
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