UFC 297: Khamzat Chimaev Takes Aim At Dricus Du Plessis Before UFC Title Fight
Khamzat Chimaev had a bit of fun with a recent social media post about middleweight title challenger Dricus Du Plessis ahead of his matchup with Sean Strickland at UFC 297.
Few fans would have predicted that Strickland would hold the middleweight belt at the end of 2023, but the controversial fighter pulled off one of the biggest upsets in UFC history when he took a dominant unanimous decision over Israel Adesanya at UFC 293.
Strickland is scheduled to defend his title for the first time against #2-ranked Du Plessis in the main event of UFC 297 on January 20, but comments that both men have made about Chimaev encouraged “Borz” to question why the two middleweights have spent so much time focusing on him.
Shortly after that initial post Chimaev decided to fire another shot, this time specifically at Du Plessis as the latter fighter prepares for his first shot at UFC gold.
Two out of Chimaev’s first three UFC bouts took place in the middleweight division before he fully committed himself to welterweight, but the 29-year-old’s infamous weight miss ahead of UFC 279 forced him to reevaluate those plans and move back up to 185 lbs. for the foreseeable future.
Originally scheduled to meet Paulo Costa at UFC 294, Chimaev instead welcomed former welterweight king Kamaru Usman to the middleweight division and bested “The Nigerian Nightmare” via majority decision.
“Borz” currently sits at #9 in the UFC middleweight rankings, and the unbeaten fighter has verbally sparred with a number of the division’s top fighters as he continues working his way towards a UFC title shot.
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