MMA fighter Khamzat Chimaev received a new famous opponent at the UFC tournament

The major UFC show, the main mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion, which will take place next week in Abu Dhabi, has changed the line-up of the second main fight. Following the Russian Islam Makhachev, who defends the lightweight champion title (up to 70 kg), an extremely popular fighter of domestic origin, Khamzat Chimaev, received a new opponent. And, as in the case of Makhachev, who will fight not Charles Oliveira, but Alexander Volkanovski, this is a change for the better. Instead of just the famous fighter Paulo Costa, Chimaev will face a real UFC superstar Kamaru Usman in a fight for the status of a contender for the championship title in the middleweight (up to 84 kg).

The UFC 294 tournament, which will take place in Abu Dhabi on October 21, has not yet taken place, and has apparently already entered the history of mixed martial arts. Two of his central fights were in jeopardy due to the fact that their participants were injured. But both, despite the lack of time, managed to not only be saved, but saved, making their composition even more interesting.

First, the UFC announced that the Russian fighter Islam Makhachev, the lightweight champion, would fight not the Brazilian Charles Oliveira, who received a cut during training, but the famous Australian Alexander Volkanovski, with whom Makhachev had an amazing fight in terms of intrigue and drama in February (see “Kommersant” dated October 12). After this, the promotion announced that Khamzat Chimaev had also received a new opponent in his match, which was also of enormous importance. A native of Chechnya, Chimaev, who previously lived in Sweden and formally represented this country, but in 2023, it seems, decided to move to the UAE, abandoning associations with the state, where anti-Islamic actions have become almost the norm, made his debut in the UFC relatively recently, in 2020, however, in a short period of time he managed to turn into an extremely popular character among the public thanks to the brightness of his style. There are no misfires on his track record yet.

In the UFC, Chimaev won six victories in a row, five of them ahead of schedule.

The promotion has positioned his upcoming fight as a middleweight qualifier, meaning the winner is virtually guaranteed a match for the title currently held by American Sean Strickland. For this rank Chimaev had fight with the Brazilian Paulo Costa, but at the last moment he was forbidden to enter the octagon by doctors due to surgery on his elbow three weeks ago.

The UFC managed to quickly find a replacement for Kostya. This was the Nigerian Kamaru Usman, who has lived in the USA for many years. And this, as in the case of Makhachev, is a change for the better. If Paulo Costa is just a fairly famous and strong fighter, then Kamaru Usman is a real mixed martial arts superstar. An excellent freestyle wrestler who has mastered many other genres of martial arts, Usman, who is 36 years old, has won a ton of prizes during his long career in the UFC, which began in the middle of the last decade. In 2019, he won the welterweight title (up to 77 kg), and then successfully defended it five times, defeating other stars – Colby Covington, Jorge Masvidal, Gilbert Burns. Usman holds various statistical records in this category. And he was recognized as the MMA Fighter of the Year by the most respected media resources like ESPN.

The biography of Kamaru Usman, who sometimes literally shocked experts with his frantic style, was slightly spoiled by two previous fights.

In them he faced the Briton Leon Edwards. In August 2022, Usman lost to him, suffering a knockout kick to the head at the end of the fight and losing the championship title, in March 2023 – by decision of the judges.

However, those misfires did not force the UFC to sharply lower its assessment of his capabilities. In the official ranking of the best fighters, regardless of the weight category of the promotion, Kamaru Usman is in seventh line. At the same time, it cannot be said that, having risen to a higher category compared to the one that brought him fame, Usman gave too significant an advantage to his equally impulsive opponent in the match in Abu Dhabi. The fact is that Khamzat Chimaev’s professional career developed both in the middle and welterweight divisions, and it is not clear which of them is “closer” to him.

Alexey Dospehov