2022 was not the best year for Khamzat Chimaev. The Chechen prodigy received the ‘once in a lifetime’ opportunity to compete against a legend like Nate Diaz but missed the weight by a huge margin and had to settle for a fight against Kevin Holland. Now the dual-weight-class fighter is calling out the newly crowned heavyweight champion Alex Pereira.
Jared Cannonier, on the other hand, is currently climbing his way back to the top after losing to Israel Adesanya in the ‘Killa Gorilla’s first title shot. After picking up a well-contested win against Sean Strickland, the American was enjoying some downtime while still continuing his training. Helen Yee decided to interview him on this occasion,
During the conversation, Helen asked Jared Cannonier about his thoughts on Khamzat ‘Borz’ Chimaev calling out Alex Pereira. The ‘Killa Gorilla’ replied, “I feel like you should definitely fight your way to the top. I also understand the business side of things to a certain extent, and it wouldn’t look good. It wouldn’t feel good, that’s for damn sure.” “But I can’t sit here and say this is what he should do to get to the title. Alex Pereira had what? Two? Three fights? And then he won his title. I’m not here to say who should do what to get a title [shot]. The UFC has its structure that it goes by and we’ve seen how it plays out in many different situations,” he further added.
Basically, Jared acknowledged that giving Khamzat a title fight with such a short resume wouldn’t look good for the promotion and fighters would probably not like such a move. On the other hand, he acknowledges that both Chimaec and Pereira have good crowd following and the UFC can make some good financial gains if this fight was actually allowed to materialize.
The potential title challenger concluded by saying, “I don’t care what they do with him. I’m not really focused on him, I’m focused on myself. So I’m sitting right where I am, and whoever comes at me, I’m going to give it to them the same way I’d give it to anybody. And that’s just it. I’m just here to fight. That’d be a fun fight.”
Neither Khamzat nor Cannonier have their next bouts confirmed as of this moment.
