Israel Adesanya isn’t worried about Khamzat Chimaev right now, but he does acknowledge how good UFC’s newest superstar actually is.
The UFC middleweight champion defended his title at UFC 271 last weekend with a unanimous decision victory over Robert Whittaker, but Chimaev wasn’t impressed.
“Easy money for me, zero wrestling. one round I’m gonna kill him,” Chimaev tweeted.
The Russian-born-Swede has taken UFC by storm since debuting in the promotion in 2020.
He has gone 4-0 to extended his professional MMA record to 10-0 and all four of his UFC fights have been won inside the distance.
Chimaev has found opponents hard to come by as a result of his dominating victories, but now that he is ranked inside the top 15 at welterweight, bigger matchups are on the horizon.
However, Adesanya doesn’t believe Chimaev is relevant to him right now given he’s the champion of the division above him.
“He’s not really relevant right now,” Adesanya said on The MMA Hour. “I don’t have to take him seriously until I have to take him seriously. His last fight I was impressed with. I was like, ‘Yo, that guy’s good.’ But there’s levels.”
‘Borz’ looks to have the number two ranked Gilbert Burns next, although a date hasn’t been announced. Chimaev then wants to face the winner of the UFC 272 main event between Colby Covington and Jorge Masvidal.
“So we’ll see how he does with Gilbert (Burns),” Adesanya said. “And he’s only fought like one Middleweight fight that I’ve seen and I’m just like who’s he fought? He can beat a lot of middleweights, I’ll tell ya that much.
“A lot of top-level middleweights. But I don’t have to take him seriously until I have to take him seriously. And I feel like it’s gonna be the same thing with how (Paulo) Costa got set up.”
Adesanya has already said he wants to face fellow UFC 271 winner Jared Cannonier next in either June or July.