{"id":72555,"date":"2025-08-16T11:08:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T11:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/72555\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T11:08:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T11:08:07","slug":"khamzat-chimaevs-cold-response-to-paulo-costas-callout-ahead-of-ufc-319-fight-with-dricus-du-plessis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/72555\/","title":{"rendered":"Khamzat Chimaev’s cold response to Paulo Costa\u2019s callout ahead of UFC 319 fight with Dricus Du Plessis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Khamzat Chimaev is yet to become the UFC middleweight champion, but Paulo Costa is already eyeing a fight with the Chechen.<\/p>\n

After eight straight victories in the organisation, \u2018Borz\u2019 has finally received a title shot against the middleweight champion Dricus Du Plessis<\/a> at UFC 319<\/a> this Saturday.<\/p>\n

His road to the title has been littered with former champions like Robert Whittaker and Kamaru Usman, but has also been slightly marred by missing out on certain fights due to cancellations or pull-outs.<\/p>\n

\"KhamzatPhoto by Jeff Bottari\/Zuffa LLC<\/p>\n

Chimaev<\/a> once pulled out of a Nate Diaz fight for missing weight, and a scheduled fight with Costa did not go ahead because of an injury to the Brazilian in 2023.<\/p>\n

Khamzat Chimaev\u2019s cold response to Paulo Costa\u2019s callout ahead of UFC 319 fight<\/p>\n

But the feud between the Russian and \u2018The Eraser\u2019 has continued during the build-up to the event in Chicago.<\/p>\n

Paulo called out his rival after he claimed the middleweight title challenger messaged his girlfriend saying \u2018nasty things\u2019, which Khamzat denies.<\/p>\n

Now, one-half of the UFC<\/a> main event of the next marquee event has responded in his usual cold fashion in an interview with the JAXXON Podcast.<\/p>\n

Responding to the 34-year-old, he said: \u201cWhat Paulo Costa says. I have my life. I have my bank account better than his, ten times (bigger). So I would be happy. So this guy is poor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why he\u2019s trying to call me out and make money, and I beat the guys who beat him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following two back-to-back defeats, Brazil\u2019s Costa returned to winning ways in July with a decision win over Roman Kopylov and currently finds himself ranked 12th in the division.<\/p>\n

But the fight with Paulo is unlikely to occur for \u2018The Wolf\u2019, as he is in the top five, meaning he is more likely to compete against a Reinier de Ridder or Caio Borralho before the 15-4 fighter.<\/p>\n

The wrestler also explained how he felt when he entered the world of MMA and how he had to adjust to a new side of the fight game he had never experienced before.<\/p>\n

\u201cA long time before, when I started with MMA, some stuff became like personal things,\u201d Chimaev said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s just fun. I understood quickly because people talk so much, and it is a fighting game, and they try to say we play with your mind, and say something to call, and make me angry. I don\u2019t care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Khamzat Chimaev responds to \u2018bogeyman\u2019 talk ahead of UFC 319<\/p>\n

The 31-year-old has been made out as a \u2018bogeyman\u2019 since stepping into the Octagon, with few calling him out after he debuted.<\/p>\n

Du Plessis even marked it out as a reason for taking the fight because \u2018no one else\u2019 would, but the man himself has now spoken about how he feels about the label.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cFor normal people, I\u2019m a good guy. If somebody is going against me and wants to take my\u2026 bro, I\u2019m scared for him. So you want to fight me? I\u2019m scared for you.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to be friends, I\u2019m a good guy for you. So that\u2019s it. So I\u2019m a warrior. If someone goes to war (with me), I\u2019m going to kill him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both men in the main event have been upfront with their plans to go in the cage and inflict damage, but they have still maintained great respect throughout the build-up, which makes the fight all the more interesting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Khamzat Chimaev is yet to become the UFC middleweight champion, but Paulo Costa is already eyeing a fight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,4120,785,85,787],"class_list":["post-72555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-khamzat-chimaev","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72555","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=72555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}