‘These Chickens, They Lie So Much’

MMA News

‘These Chickens, They Lie So Much’

Photo by Amy Kaplan/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Khamzat Chimaev has responded to Colby Covington’s antagonistic comments that he ‘quit’ the welterweight division.

Covington has been nowhere to be seen for the past year, but returned with a bang at UFC 286. Not only did he weigh in to be the back-up for the Leon Edwards vs. Kamaru Usman welterweight title fight, UFC president Dana White declared him the next challenger for Edwards after the event.

Somewhere in between those moments, Colby went in front of the press and trash talked Khamzat pretty heavily, claiming the Chechen fighter blew the chance to fight him by missing weight at UFC 279 in September 2022.

“Colby is lying. He doesn’t want to fight. I swear with everything I have,” Chimaev said in a video uploaded to his YouTube channel. “I swear with the Gods. I accept the fight four times. All the Muslims understand, I swear to Quran. I get four times call, ‘you want to fight?’ I said yes. I have conversations with Sean Shelby that show it as well that we’re going to fight with this guy, but it never happened.

“That is normal, you know? You can lie on press conference, they make it like show,” he continued. “For me, no, I can’t lie for people. I’m the real. I’m who I am. If they like it, if they don’t like who I am, well. That guy play too much. I see at [UFC Performance Institute], when he see me, he turn around, run somewhere, I don’t see him any more.

“Now you know I’m going up [to 185], the fights, and other guys. He want to fight, just come up like me. Try to come up. Like, everyone’s talking about ‘He doesn’t want to fight him.’ I fight everybody. If he want to fight, fight. For me weight class doesn’t matter. If UFC calls me to fight Brock Lesnar, I fight with him. For me, doesn’t matter. Fight everybody, which weight class UFC wants, I fight. I never chose my fights.

“These chickens, they lie so much,” he finished. “So many guys speak on the internet, want to fight Khamzat, want to fight Khamzat. But why I’m still here, brother, with no fights. Almost half year or more, more than half year.”

And according to White, Chimaev will have to wait until October when the UFC returns to Abu Dhabi to fight again. The UFC is doing everything it can to stack that card. Not only will Khamzat be shelved for seven months in anticipation of the event, but lightweight champion Islam Makhachev as well.

Hopefully by then the UFC manages to find someone willing to sign a contract to fight Chimaev. These days it seems like the biggest challenges “Borz” faces in his career is finding opponents.

https://www.mmamania.com/2023/3/20/23648175/khamzat-chimaev-responds-to-colby-covington-these-chickens-they-lie-so-much