Khamzat Chimaev has been vocal about wanting to get fast tracked to the title shot. The Chechen athlete has been flawless thus far – but he awaits the biggest test to date tonight when he faces former title contender Gilbert Burns.
Welterweight division has been in an odd situation thank so the Covid 19 pandemic. One of the best athletes in the division – Leon Edwards has been sequestered to the United Kingdom for the longest time, unable to compete. And once he became available, other storylines jeopardized his title shot. Edwards was made to walk through Belal Muhammad and Nate Diaz in order to secure the right to contend the title once again. And once again Edwards made the cut – but it’s still unclear when his time will come considering P2P champion Kamaru Usman underwent hand surgery. He’s likely to be recovered later this summer.
Chimaev thought he’d be able to cut in line – however Dana White dashed his hopes on during his appearance on a recent episode of The Pat McAfee show .
“I think if Khamzat Chimaev wins this weekend, we see him and Colby Covington next.”
“So I have a fight coming up on ABC, and in a perfect world if everything turns out right, I would love to do Khamzat vs. Colby if Khamzat should win on Saturday night.”
Chimaev is a huge favorite coming into tonight despite Burns being a UFC veteran with a significantly better track record.
White also shared that Chimaev Burns is outperforming the two title fights set to happen at UFC 273.
“It’s trending very well, man. This thing is trending to be big for us. It’s sort of one of sleeper fights. That came up out of nowhere and blew up. Like you said, everybody’s talking about anything you post online that has anything to do with Chimaev, and Burns is outperforming the main and the co-main event by six to seven times. And it is an interesting card.”