The anticipated return of Khamzat Chimaev will have to wait.
Chimaev is out of his scheduled June 22 middleweight main event with former 185-pound champion Robert Whittaker due to illness. Whittaker will instead face rising middleweight talent Ikram Aliskerov in a new headliner, UFC president Dana White announced Thursday evening following an initial report from X user @Bendaman2001.
“Unfortunately Khamzat Chimaev is out of the fight next weekend in Saudi Arabia,” White said in an Instagram video announcing the change. “Violently, and I mean violently ill, so he’s going back home and hopefully he gets well soon.”
Aliskerov had been scheduled to face Brazil’s Antonio Trócoli in the co-main event of this Saturday’s UFC Fight Night event at the organization’s Apex facility in Las Vegas. Thursday was media day for that event, yet Aliskerov was not made available as the UFC attempted to sort things out behind the scenes.
The 31-year-old Russian is 15-1 in MMA with his lone loss ironically to Chimaev five years ago in a 180-pound catchweight bout before either had debuted in the UFC.
Aliskerov has never lost when competing at middleweight and already has two highlight knockout wins in his two UFC appearances at UFC 288 vs. Phil Hawes and UFC 294 vs. Warlley Alves. He had been booked into fights with Nassourdine Imavov, Paulo Costa, Andre Muniz and Anthony Hernandez all within the past year. None of those matchups came to fruition for various reasons but it speaks to what the UFC brass thinks of Aliskerov and the level of competition he should be facing.
“We offered everybody in the division this fight, nobody would take it except for Robert Whittaker,” White added.
Whittaker is 14-3 over the past 10 years with his lone losses being to current middleweight champion Dricus Du Plessis and fellow former champion Israel Adesanya (twice). During that time he picked up victories over Yoel Romero (twice), Jared Cannonier, Marvin Vettori, and most recently Paulo Costa in February.
The organization initially announced Chimaev vs. Whittaker back in March and White said then it would serve as an official No. 1 contender’s bout with the winner earning a title shot.
This is the first time the UFC has hosted an event in Saudi Arabia. The 13-fight event set for Kingdom Arena in Riyadh is also scheduled to feature Sergei Pavlovich vs. Alexander Volkov, Johnny Walker vs. Volkan Oezdemir and Kelvin Gastelum vs. Daniel Rodriguez on the main card.
Chimaev last fought at UFC 294 in October, when he improved to 13-0 in mixed martial arts thanks to a three-round majority decision win over former welterweight champion Kamaru Usman. Usman took that fight on just 10 days’ notice and was making his middleweight debut. He holds other notable wins over Gilbert Burns and Kevin Holland.
The undefeated star’s introduction to UFC fans in 2020 was memorable with the blue-chip prospect earning three highlight stoppage victories across multiple weight classes in a two-month span. However, he has only fought four times in the four years since that stretch.
It is unclear how long this latest setback will keep him out of action.
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