{"id":215909,"date":"2025-10-15T18:56:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T18:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/215909\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T18:56:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T18:56:10","slug":"ufc-champion-khazmat-chimaev-teases-risky-game-plan-if-he-gets-alex-pereira-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/215909\/","title":{"rendered":"UFC champion Khazmat Chimaev teases risky game plan if he gets Alex Pereira fight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If Khamzat Chimaev gets to share the Octagon with Alex Pereira, he might just tempt fate.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s hard for MMA fans to imagine that if Chimaev were to meet \u201cPoatan\u201d he won\u2019t attempt takedowns right away. Pereira is viewed as one of the UFC\u2019s most dangerous strikers today. He <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjpenn.com\/mma-news\/alex-pereira\/ufc-320-results-alex-pereira-tkos-magomed-ankalaev-video\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">dusted Magomed Ankalaev in just over a minute<\/a> to reclaim the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship in early October.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with Aslanbek Badaev, covered by <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/RedCorner_MMA\/status\/1978457949208019066\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Red Corner MMA<\/a>, Chimaev hinted at possibly testing his striking against Pereira if the two ever collide.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Khamzat Chimaev makes it clear that he\u2019s ready for a new test and wants to fight Alex Pereira at light heavyweight \ud83d\udcaa\ud83d\udc40<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019d love to chase that second belt at light heavyweight. It\u2019s a good match-up for me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>(via Aslanbek Badaev) <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/JzKJSU0PtC\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/JzKJSU0PtC<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Red Corner MMA (@RedCorner_MMA) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RedCorner_MMA\/status\/1978457949208019066?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">October 15, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you ask me, of course I would love to fight for the second belt,\u201d Chimaev said. \u201cIt\u2019s no secret the guy who\u2019s got the belt at 205 pounds now is a very good matchup for me \u2013 except for should I get reckless standing with him. They say he has a lot of power, but I\u2019ve never been edged out in that area. He used to fight at 185, too, and then moved up to 205. so I would like to fight at light heavyweight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Chimaev then said that he\u2019s open to any middleweight title challenger for his next fight. He named Nassourdine Imavov, Reinier de Ridder, and Anthony Hernandez. Imavov is fresh off a unanimous decision victory over Caio Borralho. \u201cRDR\u201d will meet Brendan Allen at UFC Vancouver on Saturday, as \u201cFluffy\u201d Hernandez was pulled from the headliner due to an injury.<\/p>\n<p>In his last outing back in August, Chimaev <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjpenn.com\/mma-news\/khamzat-chimaev\/ufc-319-results-khamzat-chimaev-defeats-dricus-du-plessis-highlights\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">dominated Dricus du Plessis<\/a> to capture the UFC Middleweight Championship. \u201cDDP\u201d couldn\u2019t get anything going. While many expected du Plessis to scramble more, Chimaev had nearly 22 minutes of control time.<\/p>\n<p>Many expect Imavov to be next in line for a shot at Chimaev, but it could depend on de Ridder\u2019s performance against Allen. Allen is known for being a tough out for anyone, so if \u201cRDR\u201d can pull off a finish, it might push him past Imavov.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If Khamzat Chimaev gets to share the Octagon with Alex Pereira, he might just tempt fate. It\u2019s hard&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":["post-215909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215909","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=215909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}