{"id":510627,"date":"2026-02-28T23:12:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T23:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/510627\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T23:12:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T23:12:07","slug":"usaf-veteran-accuses-ufc-champion-khamzat-chimaev-of-alleged-airport-assault","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/510627\/","title":{"rendered":"USAF veteran accuses UFC champion Khamzat Chimaev of alleged airport assault"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Khamzat Chimaev may have some explaining to do as a United States Air Force veteran is accusing the UFC middleweight champion of alleged assault earlier this month at the DXB airport in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Chimaev is known to be a little rough around the edges, but we\u2019ve never really seen him get into any altercations with fans or non-fighters. The UFC middleweight champion usually does his bidding against former or future opponents, so to learn that he\u2019s being alleged of assaulting a U.S. military veteran is pretty surprising. Of course, these are just allegations at this time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">On Friday, an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/1rjpatterson\/?hl=en\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Instagram post<\/a> from a USAF veteran, Rich Patterson, was discovered and started to make the rounds within MMA\u2019s social media community. The post alleges that Chimaev assaulted Patterson with a \u201ckick to the chest\u201d just for being approached in the airport. Patterson claims he was trying to say hello to the UFC champion and didn\u2019t even mention an attempt to grab a photo or autograph. That\u2019s when things apparently took a turn for the worse.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cI\u2019m a husband, father, and brother to many,\u201d wrote Patterson. \u201cThat said, when we travel, nobody expects to be assaulted, not only that but as a fan attempting to humbly approach a person to say hello to someone they follow. At around 0100-0200 Khamzat Chimaev assaulted me earlier this month in the DXB airport while I was traveling alone back to the U.S. I was literally surrounded by him and like 7 or 8 others when he decided to charge through and kick me in the chest. It\u2019s all on CCTV. No matter how early in the morning, no matter how hung over or intoxicated a \u201dprofessional\u201d UFC fighter is, nobody deserves this. I\u2019m a 46-year-old USAF vet. The stories and rumors about this guy\u2019s wild antics are true. This guy tried to take me out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Chimaev, who is one of UFC\u2019s most dominant and impressive fighters right now, hasn\u2019t competed inside of the Octagon since winning the UFC middleweight title against Dricus du Plessis at UFC 319 all the way back in Aug. 2025. Fight fans have been hoping to see \u201cBorz\u201d back in action to defend his 185-pound strap for the first time, but the undefeated star hasn\u2019t been able to get back inside the cage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Now he has to deal with this mess if the incident at Dubai\u2019s airport ends up being true.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Khamzat Chimaev may have some explaining to do as a United States Air Force veteran is accusing the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,40762,785,85,1396],"class_list":["post-510627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510627","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=510627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}