If the UFC is still in the business of creating stars, Khamzat Chimaev qualifies on his own terms. He should be a star, but he comes with this little knapsack of asterisks and uncertainties.
With his visa issues, we weren’t even sure he’d be able to compete in the United States up until the minute the UFC booked him into a title fight with 185-pound champion Dricus du Plessis at UFC 319 in Chicago on Aug. 16. Even then it felt hypothetical until Khamzat popped up in California to train.
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By every measure, Chimaev should be among the top UFC draws as he gets set for his ninth overall fight in the organization next weekend. He’s undefeated in his pro career, which is a loud enough detail to market a contender. That he broke into the UFC during the pandemic — starching two dudes in 10 days on “Fight Island,” just as the fight game’s libido for gambling was ramping up — is fodder for a future “30 for 30.”
Watching him turn Kevin Holland into human origami is something that’ll stick with a man. And honestly, the X-ray of Robert Whittaker’s mouth after his encounter with Chimaev — one that ended with a row of Whittaker’s lower teeth dislodged — doubled as a warning to stay the hell away.
Khamzat Chimaev has been a potential UFC star who’s hard to pin down, both literally and figuratively. (Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC)
(Chris Unger via Getty Images)
The trouble with Chimaev is that he’s a mysterious enough figure that you can’t trust him. Not him specifically, but the complex nature of all that he is, and the many lunatic things surrounding him. He has the look of a hitman. The hard Caucasus beard, the cleft lip, the leathery features — it’s an aura, all right.
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Caspian chic. Terrifying.
Yet he has associations, too. His dealings with the Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadyrov darkened his appeal in America, even for those who try to keep their politics separate from their sports. In Chimaev’s case, that’s become next to impossible. His visa issues stemmed from that very association in the first place, and it took no less a figure than President Donald Trump — UFC CEO Dana White’s good friend and fixer — to make things right.
As Chimaev said in his media day in Los Angeles, he doesn’t love the political associations. But then again neither did the Ford Theater. He’s stuck with them, especially because the UFC has become a celebratory arm of the very Trump administration that has opened up his prospects.
Yet it’s not just that.
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It’s that Chimaev has been somewhat unreliable in general. There was a discourse over the last week on that very topic, started by former fighter Din Thomas, who said that if Chimaev won the middleweight title it would be a nightmare for the UFC. Why? Because he doesn’t fight enough. Since 2022, he has fought just once a year. Getting him into the Octagon is matchmaker algebra.
It’s geography, religion, politics and the element of surprise all bound into one. Chimaev had multiple fights with Leon Edwards nixed due to a long, reportedly life-threatening bout from COVID, a stretch during which he contemplated retirement.
Even when he’s booked things have a way of going sideways.
The Holland fight wasn’t supposed to include Holland at all. Chimaev was supposed to play the role of executioner against Nate Diaz in the latter’s final UFC fight at UFC 279. But Chimaev couldn’t make weight for that welterweight showdown and ended up in a Las Vegas emergency room. The UFC was left to scramble, and Chimaev was redirected to middleweight to face Holland, all just to keep him on the card. That meant Holland was the only one who suffered the consequences of Chimaev’s botched cut.
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He was supposed to fight Whittaker in the UFC’s first foray to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia — which was a big deal, given the money being spent — but was forced out with an illness. Again, the UFC was forced to figure out a Plan B, which ended up being the relatively unknown Ikram Aliskerov standing in against Whittaker in the main event. As far as consolation prizes go, that one was particularly underwhelming.
Factor in the blackout dates for Ramadan, and Chimaev is fully capable of holding the middleweight division hostage for long periods of time, something that has perhaps kept him away from a title shot to begin with. The truth is, he comes with a lot of fuss.
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Yet through all this there’s been a feeling that he’s inevitable. He’s been like a wrecking ball that crashes through the strongest delusions, as he did with Whittaker his last time out. Even as we’ve squinted to identify his weaknesses — his cardio faltering in the makeshift fight against Kamaru Usman, the vulnerable moments against Gilbert Burns — we suspect a tyrant is in our midst.
Usually that kind of thing translates to stardom, especially five years into a dominant UFC career. And Chimaev is a star. Mostly. He’s a star shaped like an asterisk, so much so that it’s hard to tell the difference. What we’ve been waiting for is the declarative moment when he becomes everything we thought he was.
It’s been a lot of noise to cut through, but that’s where we are. For better or worse, Khamzat Chimaev — the UFC’s great pending monster — will get his chance at that belt. And maybe it is just as simple as that.
