Khamzat Chimaev Is Letting His Fighting Do The Talking

Since taking the belt in August 2025, people were left wondering who could possibly take “Borz” off the throne, and when would the first person get their chance to try. 

Contenders made their bids, Nassourdine Imavov chief among them as he picked up wins over Israel Adesanya and Caio Borralho in 2025. However, the long-simmering tension with Sean Strickland, with whom Chimaev had trained in the past, came to a head when Strickland beat Anthony “Fluffy” Hernandez in February. 

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The former middleweight champion is never one to mince words and turned the vitriol up another level after stopping the streaking Hernandez in Houston. Chimaev, for his part, welcomes the smoke and made sure to let the powers that be know what he wanted. 

“After (Strickland’s) last fight, he was talking s*** about me,” Chimaev said. “I called (UFC Chief Business Officer) Hunter (Campbell), ‘Give me this guy.’”

Granted, Chimaev might perceive “game plan” as “way to win,” but when it comes to how he gets there, the world knows it’s with his otherworldly grappling. Chimaev holds the all-time marks for control time percentage (76.3 percent) and top position percentage (74.2 percent) in the middleweight division.

His work ethic continues to become mythological in its own right. Chimaev has said he needed to turn things down a notch so as to stay healthy through a training camp rather than the other way around, and at 32 years old, one could argue he is just entering his fighting prime as he starts his reign as champion. 

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Strickland is a confident grappler, although his takedown defense sits at a decent-but-not great rate of 76 percent. Still, the extracurricular beef around the fight does always add the unknowns around a fighter’s mentality ahead of competition. For now, those tensions are muted as they’ve been steered clear of one another during fight week, but Chimaev is chomping at the bit to get his hands on the American and secure his first title defense.

Should he be successful, the next question likely to come is when he could return for his second bout — a fair question as this fight comes nine months after he won the belt and when you consider how Chimaev splashed onto the scene with two wins in 10 days on Fight Island. Chimaev fought once per year for the last three years, frustrating those who want to see him in the Octagon as much as possible, especially now that he sits on the division’s throne. However, he did mark his interest in competing again when the Octagon makes its annual October trip to Abu Dhabi, which Chimaev now calls home.