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Din Thomas remains concerned with Khamzat Chimaev’s potential activity as UFC middleweight champion.
Thomas received a ton of flack for claiming that it would be a disaster if Chimaev won the title at UFC 319. Chimaev ended up dominating Dricus Du Plessis last month in Chicago, and expressed his desire of making a quick turnaround to defend his belt at UFC 321 on Oct. 25 in Abu Dhabi – an idea Dana White appeared open to.
However, that idea became quickly unrealistic after the promotion booked Reinier de Ridder and Anthony Hernandez for the UFC Fight Night 262 headliner Oct. 18 in Vancouver. The other remaining top contenders, Nassourdine Imavov and Caio Borralho, will square off in Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 258 main event in Paris.
“I thought that was obvious. I thought that everybody felt that way,” Thomas told MMA Junkie of Chimaev. “Apparently people didn’t feel the way I felt about Khamzat and his frequency, and people thought I didn’t want him to win. I predicted him to win. I think he’s the better fighter. So when he won, I’m like, ‘All right, cool,’ and then he said he was going to fight in Abu Dhabi, and I’m like, ‘Come on!’ So then I made a comment about that, and I just read something recently about, ‘UFC analyst said Khamzat Chimaev was lying.’ I might have said that too, but I didn’t mean it that way.
“But it is what it is – I’m just saying he’s a great fighter, but the idea of him being a great champion in terms of defending the belt a lot, I still don’t see it happening. The fact that he said he wanted to fight in Abu Dhabi, and as soon as he said that, like almost right afterwards, they booked ‘Fluffy’ (Hernandez) and Reinier de Ridder, and they knew that they had Caio Borralho and Imavov in the fight (already booked for Paris). So that took him out of October automatically. So yeah, I just didn’t see any real authenticity in him fighting in October. Who knows when he fights again?”
Thomas’ concern comes from the fact that Chimaev has only managed to log in one fight a year in the past three years. He edged out Kamaru Usman in 2023, ran through Robert Whittaker in 2024, and dethroned Du Plessis this year.
