Will Khamzat Chimaev make another appearance inside of the octagon so quickly?
The rising prospect is coming off another jaw dropping win over Gerald Meerschaert at UFC on ESPN+ 36 by knocking him out in 17 seconds. The middleweight has been making waves in the company following his performances against John Phillips and Rhys McKee back in July.
Now, it seems that a lot of fighters want to end the hype of Khamzat Chimaev, including veteran Markus Perez. Originally, Perez was set to fight Rodolfo Vieira on Oct. 10; however, his opponent has been forced to pull out of his bout due to a rib injury.
Following the announcement of his fight being scrapped from the upcoming event, Perez wasted no time in challenging the rising prospect by sending a video to MMA Junkie:
“I don’t know your name, but you talk a lot of (expletive) for a guy who just got here,” Perez said into the camera. “You (knew) I wanted to fight you and you declined? That’s a bunch of bologna, bro.”
Thus far, Chimaev has yet to respond to Perez’s callout. In fact, Chimaev aimed for a higher ranked opponent earlier this week as the middleweight called out Stephen Thompson, who’s currently ranked at No. 5 in the welterweight division. Thompson hasn’t responded to Chimaev’s challenge as well.
Check out Perez’s callout of Chimaev in the video here.
With Vieira’s withdrawal, the UFC’s Oct. 10 fight night card now stands at 12 fights:
Marlon Moraes vs. Cory Sandhagen
Edson Barboza vs. Sodiq Yusuff
Seungwoo Choi vs. Youssef Zalal
Ben Rothwell vs. Marcin Tybura
Thomas Almeida vs. Alejandro Perez
Tracey Cortez vs. Bea Malecki
Chris Daukaus vs. Rodrigo Nascimento
Abu Azaitar vs. Joaquim Buckley
Ali Alqaisi vs. Tony Kelley
Tom Aspinall vs. Sergey Spivak
Giga Chikadze vs. Omar Morales
Bruno Silva vs. Tagir Ulanbekov