{"id":662064,"date":"2026-05-10T15:30:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T15:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/662064\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T15:30:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T15:30:09","slug":"khamzat-chimaev-told-dana-white-hes-moving-to-light-heavyweight-following-ufc-328-loss-i-dont-want-to-fight-in-this-weight-class-anymore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/662064\/","title":{"rendered":"Khamzat Chimaev told Dana White he&#8217;s moving to light heavyweight following UFC 328 loss: &#8220;I don&#8217;t want to fight in this weight class anymore&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Khamzat Chimaev might be done with the middleweight division following UFC 328.<\/p>\n<p>Chimaev no longer lays claim to the 185-pound gold and he has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjpenn.com\/mma-news\/sean-strickland\/ufc-328-results-sean-strickland-defeats-khamzat-chimaev-highlights\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">suffered the first defeat of his pro MMA career<\/a>. \u201cBorz\u201d shared the Octagon with Sean Strickland in Newark this past Saturday. While Chimaev was widely expected to turn in a dominant grappling display, there were some experts who felt Strickland could avoid the wrestling enough to make things interesting.<\/p>\n<p>Once Strickland forced the fight to turn into a standup battle, \u201cBorz\u201d was in the challenger\u2019s world. Strickland got the better of Chimaev on the feet enough to score the split nod. He is now a two-time UFC Middleweight Champion. Both men ended up <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjpenn.com\/mma-news\/ufc\/sean-strickland-explains-mutual-respect-for-khamzat-chimaev-following-ufc-328-shocker-your-soul-is-just-exposed\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">squashing their beef<\/a> once the result was finalized.<\/p>\n<p>During the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=foqotWFPMgU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">UFC 328 post-fight press conference<\/a>, UFC CEO Dana White revealed he was told by Chimaev that a move to 205 pounds is in his future.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe literally walked up to me after the fight and said, \u2018I want to move up. I don\u2019t want to fight in this weight class anymore,\u201d\u201d White recalled.<\/p>\n<p>White then theorized that Chimaev had trouble balancing things as his popularity grew and the pressure mounted, which may have led to some weight-cutting issues.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEver since Fight Island, he\u2019s gone on a run,\u201d White said. \u201cWon the world title, did everything that he said he was going to do, but with the level of success and lifestyle, it makes it tough.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Regardless, White has been in awe of Chimaev since his UFC debut back in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen you see somebody fight for the first time and you\u2019re like, \u2018Wow, this guy is special,\u2019 and they become a world champion in the UFC, yeah. I would say so.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There are a slew of fresh matchups available for Chimaev if he decides to make the move to light heavyweight official. \u201cBorz\u201d had already teased making a change in weight class prior to his bout with Strickland.<\/p>\n<p>Do you think Khamzat Chimaev should make a permanent move to 205 pounds? Chime in with your opinion in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Khamzat Chimaev might be done with the middleweight division following UFC 328. Chimaev no longer lays claim to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662065,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":["post-662064","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\/662064","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=662064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}