Khamzat Chimaev claims he has accepted a fight with middleweight champion Alex Pereira for UFC 282 on December 10.
Pereira won the 185lb belt by stopping Israel Adesanya in the final round at UFC 281 earlier this month. It was his third victory over the Nigerian having triumphed twice during their respective kickboxing careers.
He has now been called out by Chimaev who tweeted: "December 10, let’s go, i already agreed. Now it’s your turn." Pereira has yet to respond but is unlikely to accept such a fight at three weeks' notice, while the UFC has already announced the UFC 282 main event. between Jiri Prochazka and Glover Teixeira who meet in a rematch for the light-heavyweight title.
Chimaev has been campaigning at welterweight but failed to make the 171lb limit for his last scheduled fight, against Nate Diaz at UFC 279. The Swede was instead pitted against Kevin Holland in the co-main event, choking out his rival inside the first three minutes. Chimaev is in line for a title shot against the winner of Leon Edwards' rematch with Kamaru Usman but could instead move up to 185lb.
A tweet after his routine win over Holland said simply "185" while UFC president Dana White admitted to concern at his fighter missing weight. "It’s a problem," he said. "That’s a problem that he missed weight. I don’t know. We’ve got to look at it and figure it out. What makes sense is for him to fight at [185lb], so we’ll see. It is what it is. It happened. We’ll go back this week and come up with a plan and probably have him fight at [185]."
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Chimaev may also have to bide his time for a shot at the middleweight title with Adesanya confident he will be handed an immediate rematch. "I’ll still fight him,” he told the MMA Hour. "If he was going to fight someone else and lose the belt, I’ll still fight him [next]. I’ll fight him. I hope he’s the champion, but I’m just saying, hypothetically, I’ll still fight him.
"I can beat him. I know I can beat him. You’ve seen I can beat him. He just — I won’t say luck, f*** luck — he just invested well. A good game plan. He’s a good fighter, but I know I’m...it’s my ego, maybe. Sure. But I’m allowed. I just believe I’m better."
