Khamzat Chimaev appeared to reference Conor McGregor's social media activity when addressing the fans' reaction to his win over Kevin Holland.
Chimaev needed just three minutes to choke out Holland at UFC 279 on Saturday night in a fight which only came about when the Swede failed to make weight on Friday. Chimaev had been due to take on Nate Diaz but weighed in 7.5lb heavy to spark an almighty scramble to rearrange the card.
Diaz instead took on Tony Ferguson and choked out his fellow veteran in the fourth round of the main event while Daniel Rodriguez outpointed Li Jingliang in the third short-notice fight. Chimaev has shown no remorse for failing to make weight, insisting he was told to stop cutting by a doctor.
And after being roundly booed following his quick-fire win over Diaz, the unbeaten welterweight said: " You care about that s**? I don’t care. I care about my family, I care about my family, I care about my career, I care about my money. One day they’re with me, one day they’re not with me.
"Watch the weigh-in on Instagram, look at who has the most views. Look at how many views I have and [how many] Diaz has and you’ll see who’s more of a star. People can say they don’t want to watch me fight, they’re liars. Everyone want to watch my fights, everyone wants to see a killer. Not that smoking s***... I’m a professional athlete here."
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Chimaev and McGregor have traded insults on social media in the past with the Irishman claiming his potential rival should have been removed from the UFC 279 card for missing weight. And the former two-weight world champion has posted several pictures and videos of himself smoking as he recovers from the broken leg he suffered against Dustin Poirier last summer.
He is expected to return in the new year and has hinted at moving up to Chimaev's weight class, but the Swede could himself move up to middleweight with UFC president Dana White admitting: "It’s a problem. 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 [185 pounds], 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]."
