Khamzat Chimaev acknowledges Jon Jones’ greatness and would love an opportunity to fight him.
Although there’s multiple weight classes between current middleweight Chimaev (13-0 MMA, 7-0 UFC) and UFC heavyweight champion Jones (27-1 MMA, 21-1 UFC), Chimaev says Jones’ accolades should make him a dream fight for anyone aspiring to be great.
“Jon Jones still is the best fighter in the world right now,” Chimaev said on the “Smile 2 Jannah” podcast. “He has most title defenses, he’s a two-weight class champion, he never lost still. He’s the youngest champion in UFC (history). If you speak about MMA, everyone knows Jon Jones. In history, (there is) nobody like him.
“So for sure he’s dream match for everyone who wants to be in the history (books). I’m younger than him. I hope he’s not going to go soon from this job, get this fight as well. When I (grew) up – I like him, I like his training. I watched his training, I learned a lot of stuff from him. We spoke about training so we can maybe train together. He’s a nice guy. We were speaking and joking around.”
Undefeated Chimaev is on the cusp of title contention. When asked who would win if they both were in their prime, Chimaev laughed.
“Depends which weight class,” Chimaev said. “He’s now a heavyweight. You’re asking me? For sure I think I will win. That’s a hard fight for everyone. He fought two times with my training partner Alexander Gustafsson – they had good fight.
“So I become a fighter with Alex, been training with him. For sure I want to fight with (Jones) so it will be a big history if we fight. Since Alex gave him the best fight in history, now maybe it’s my time to fight him, as well.”
