{"id":128891,"date":"2025-09-09T00:04:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T00:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/128891\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T00:04:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T00:04:08","slug":"robert-whittaker-impressed-by-nassourdine-imavov-but-unsure-anyone-beats-khamzat-chimaev","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/128891\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Whittaker impressed by Nassourdine Imavov, but unsure anyone beats Khamzat Chimaev"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robert Whittaker sees UFC champion Khamzat Chimaev’s grappling being too much for anyone at middleweight.<\/p>\n

Nassourdine Imavov (17-4 MMA, 9-2 UFC) called for a title shot after outstriking Caio Borralho in Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 258 headliner<\/a> at Accor Arena in Paris.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Whittaker credited Imavov for putting on a striking clinic against Borralho (17-2 MMA, 7-1 UFC), but doesn’t love his chances against Chimaev (15-0 MMA, 9-0 UFC).<\/p>\n

“I don’t know how anyone beats Khamzat at the moment,” Whittaker said on his\u00a0MMArcade\u00a0Podcast<\/a>. “His wrestling is so high-level. I feel like the way to beat him is with high-level jiu-jitsu. If Imavov has high-level back jiu-jitsu \u2013 which I know he does have high-level jiu-jitsu \u2013 but if it’s that high-level, like Gilbert Burns high-level, then maybe we’ll see something. But also, fights are funny. Anything can happen. Maybe Chimaev dives into a knee or foot.”<\/p>\n

With Reinier de Ridder scheduled to face Anthony Hernandez in the UFC Fight Night 262 main event Oct. 18 in Vancouver, Whittaker doesn’t think Imavov is a lock for the next title shot.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think that fight cemented that fight (against Chimaev) for him,” Whittaker said of Imavov. “I think it definitely put him in the running, but that’s what it is. It’s a running now. I think RDR and ‘Fluffy’ are going to punch on, and if they do something exceptional, they will jump the queue, I think.”<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Robert Whittaker on Nassourdine Imavov’s chances vs. Khamzat Chimaev<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Robert Whittaker sees UFC champion Khamzat Chimaev’s grappling being too much for anyone at middleweight. Nassourdine Imavov (17-4…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,38614,22192,786,4120,785,80736,17831,85,787],"class_list":["post-128891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-caio-borralho","tag-chimaev","tag-fighting","tag-khamzat-chimaev","tag-mma","tag-nassourdine-imavov","tag-robert-whittaker","tag-sports","tag-ufc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128891","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=128891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}