Dricus Du
Plessis took a dig at Khamzat
Chimaev’s history of pulling out after a backup was announced
for their upcoming matchup.

Du Plessis (23-2) is scheduled to defend his middleweight title
against Chimaev (14-0) in the
UFC 319 main event on Aug. 16 at United Center in Chicago.
Nassourdine
Imavov was recently announced as the back-up fighter for the
middleweight title clash, which means the French striker has to
make weight for an opportunity to step in if either du Plessis or
Chimaev pulls out.

Reacting to the announcement, du Plessis said he’s fighting Imavov,
reminding Chimaev of his history of pulling out.

“Guess I’m fighting [Imavov,]” du Plessis wrote on his Instagram
Stories.

While Chimaev has had a lot of cancelled fights in the UFC, he
wasn’t responsible for all of them. His first cancellation against
Leon
Edwards was due to both testing positive for Covid-19.
Similarly, his opponent Paulo Costa
pulled out of their matchup in 2023 due to a staph infection.

Although there are other such examples, Chimaev has also pulled out
of matchups on his own accord on multiple occasions. “Borz” backed
out of two bookings against Edwards due to his lingering
coronavirus recovery. He also missed weight by a whopping 7.5
pounds for a booking against Nate Diaz,
leading to the reshuffling of the entire UFC 279 main card in 2022.
He most recently pulled out of a booking against Robert
Whittaker in June 2024 due to unexplained illness.

However, Chimaev fought Whittaker at UFC 308 later that year and
looked better than ever, stopping “Bobby Knuckles” with a
jaw-breaking face crank in the opening stanza. A lot of Chimaev’s
backouts were driven by health issues, rumoured to be a result of
overtraining. Chimaev changed camps before the Whittaker fight and
claims to be at his best health now.

IMAK ADMIN

By IMAK ADMIN

Internationaler Kampfkunst und Kampfsport Kleinanzeiger