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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Sport
Harry Davies

Khamzat Chimaev hailed as "terrifying" as rising UFC star trains with Darren Till

Surging UFC prospect Khamzat Chimaev has been labelled as "truly terrifying" ahead of his return to the cage.

Chimaev - who is linked to fight Gilbert Burns at UFC 273 - is currently training alongside former welterweight title challenger Darren Till in Sweden.

Till recently flew out to Stockholm to train at the Allstars Gym alongside Chimaev after the pair teased a meet-up on social media.

The Liverpudlian is hoping Chimaev, who is an accomplished freestyle wrestler, can improve his grappling skills after being outwrestled by Derek Brunson in his last fight.

And former UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping has heard that Chimaev is getting the most out of Till in the gym.

"I am hearing things about Khamzat that are truly terrifying. As I said, Darren Till is out there. I've got a bunch of friends out there in Sweden," he said on his YouTube channel.

"They're filming. Blockasset is a company that I'm involved with and they are calling me up and saying, 'Holy f*** s***! Khamzat is the real deal!'

"Works his a** off, trains like a motherf*****, lifting weights, pushing everybody in the room. Great stand-up, great wrestling."

No.11 ranked welterweight Chimaev could leapfrog the top ten of his division to be in title contention with a win over Burns.

'Borz' has switched between middleweight and welterweight during his four wins in the UFC and has called out the champions of both divisions.

But Bisping thinks Chimaev should focus on beating 170-pound king Kamaru Usman first before thinking about moving back up in weight.

"Obviously Gilbert Burns is no walk in the park, but that fight hasn't actually even been officially made yet but still, he's got to beat Usman before he thinks about moving up to 185 [pounds]," Bisping said.

Chimaev called out middleweight champion Israel Adesanya after he defended his title at UFC 271 by outpointing Robert Whittaker in their rematch.

Will Khamzat Chimaev become a UFC champion this year? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below

"[Israel Adesanya] easy money for me, 0 wrestling. 1 round I’m gonna kill him," Chimaev wrote to the middleweight champion on Twitter.

Adesanya shrugged off the reply at the post-fight press conference which made some fans accuse him of being nervous to fight Chimaev, something that Bisping dismissed.

"I don't think Israel was nervous, there's no way when Khamzat isn't in the room that Israel is gonna be nervous by somebody suggesting 'oh Khamzat just tweeted that," he added.

Chimaev is unranked at middleweight and will likely need to be some top contenders before getting a shot at Adesanya, who will likely defend his belt against Jared Cannonier next.

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