Newly crowned middleweight champion Alex Pereira says that Khamzat Chimaev turned down a fight with him for UFC 283 in Brazil.
After Pereira defeated Israel Adesanya at UFC 281 to capture the 185-pound title, undefeated welterweight contender Chimaev called him out. He specifically said that he had already signed to face Pereira at UFC 283 in Rio de Janeiro on January 21.
“Ready to fight in Brazil @AlexPereiraUFC let’s go champ,” Chimaev posted on social media on November 13. A week later, Chimaev wrote, “@AlexPereiraUFC 10 December let’s go, i already agreed. Now it’s your turn.”
Ready to fight in Brazil @AlexPereiraUFC let’s go champ 🤪🤝
— Khamzat Chimaev (@KChimaev) November 13, 2022
@AlexPereiraUFC 10 December let’s go, i already agreed. Now it’s your turn ⚔️
— Khamzat Chimaev (@KChimaev) November 20, 2022
Pereira refuted Chimaev’s claims during an appearance on The MMA Hour on Monday.
“[I] went to [my] manager sand said, ‘Look, I just did a hard weight cut, I can’t make [185] for this right now, but tell the UFC I’ll challenge him to fight me at 205 in Rio.’ Chimaev didn’t want it,” Pereira said.
“He’s a big guy, [I’m] a big guy, let’s do it at light heavyweight so we don’t have to worry about a weight cut. We offered 205 for Rio.”
Shortly after Pereira’s comments, Chimaev responded via social media. “I asked them about this fight in Brazil, fake belt fake Coach fake fighter,” Chimaev said.
.@KChimaev responds to Alex Pereira claiming he asked to fight him at 205 in January pic.twitter.com/VCVVIGtKrE
— MMAFighting.com (@MMAFighting) November 28, 2022
Jiri Prochazka plans to show he’s the ‘rightful champion’ when he returns
Alex Pereira accuses Khamzat Chimaev of turning down fight, Chimaev responds
