UFC<\/a> Paris, though, it will become clearer who will be one of the next in line as the main event pits ranked contenders Nassourdine Imavov against Caio Borralho.<\/p>\nBorralho is looking to climb the rankings from his seventh position to knock the second-ranked home country fighter, Imavov, off his perch.<\/p>\n
During an interview with Shak MMA, the 32-year-old was asked who out of himself, his opponent, Anthony Hernandez, and Reinier de Ridder had the best chance of beating Khamzat.<\/p>\n
The Brazilian said: \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s crazy because, I think RDR has a good style because of his jiu-jitsu on the bottom but I don\u2019t think he can survive the pressure of Khamzat even one round. I don\u2019t think he\u2019s ready for that. He\u2019s not used to the level of competition of UFC still.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think he has the tools to take all the grappling from Chimaev. I think the guy, that can go and do good, it\u2019s myself and Fluffy (Hernandez). And the only thing about Fluffy is that I don\u2019t know how his jiu-jitsu position game is that is very dominant.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis cardio that is very dominant. That is a big threat for Khamzat. If he gets Khamzat frustrated and tired, he\u2019s going to do very good, but I don\u2019t know after he gets taken down how he\u2019s going to behave with his back on the bottom.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hernandez has just come off an impressively dominant finish of Roman Dolidze in the Apex and now finds himself in a bout against de Ridder.<\/p>\n
\u2018The Dutch King\u2019 won a razor-close decision over Robert Whittaker, but the fight drew some criticism for the scoring.<\/p>\n
Their bout in Canada is being built as the de facto number one contender clash, although an impressive victory on Saturday in Paris could turn that honour in favour of the main event fighters.<\/p>\n
UFC Paris star Caio Borralho picks his one best weapon to frustrate Khamzat Chimaev<\/p>\n
Caio will have to silence the French crowd if he wants to stake his claim as the next in line to a champion he knows very well.<\/p>\n
He was once part of a training camp with \u2018Borz\u2019 and believes this experience will be a key factor in a future fight.<\/p>\n
However, one key skill of his has given him even more confidence in being the first man to beat the dominant Chechen.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think my jiu-jitsu, you know, I think I can give a lot of threats on him on my jiu-jitsu on my ground game if it\u2019s on the bottom or on the top, but mostly on the bottom because he might take me down,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to frustrate him. Denying his steps and showing all my versatility. So my jiu-jitsu and when it comes to my striking, my distance control, and my feints, I\u2019m going to make him shoot at the wrong time.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I think it\u2019s going to be two of the best athletes in the world facing each other and giving threats to each other and trying to k- \u2013 \u2013 each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, the \u2018Fighting Nerd\u2019 will have to look for a finish in the Imavov fight to impress the organisation\u2019s top brass sufficiently to earn this opportunity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A UFC Paris star fighting for his title spot snubs UFC middleweight contender but picks two who can…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,4120,785,85,787,59037],"class_list":{"0":"post-117980","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-khamzat-chimaev","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-paris"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Khamzat](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/GettyImages-2181229394-1-1024x683.jpg\")
Photo by Chris Unger\/Zuffa LLC<\/p>\n