On Saturday, Khamzat
Chimaev will headline UFC
279 against Nate Diaz.
Advertisement
His jiu-jitsu trainer, Alan Finfou Nascimento, expects an
impressive win over Diaz at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas but
revealed to Sherdog.com that Chimaev is not in a rush to challenge
for welterweight gold in the event of a victory.
“Of course our priority would be the title bout, but in case UFC
wants to make the trilogy between Leon
Edwards and Kamaru
Usman, he would like to do a fight in the middleweight
division,” Nascimento said.
The coach also thanked Caio
Borralho for his help with Chimaev’s camp over the past couple
weeks.
“Caio came to help us, he added a lot to the preparation, and he’s
with us here in Vegas,” Nascimento said. “I hope he continues to
help us. He’s a top fighter, and he helped Chimaev a lot.”
According to Nascimento, Chimaev will go with him to Rio de Janeiro
after the fight for the premiere of the film “Faixa Preta,” which
is about legendary jiu-jitsu champion Fernando
Terere, who trained Finfou. While there, Chimaev is expected to
visit the academy run by Jose Aldo as
well as the Cantagalo slum, where Terere initially discovered
Nascimento. As a former Chechen refugee based in Sweden, Chimaev
sees many similarities between the Brazilian slums and his life in
the eastern European country.
“He really wants to visit Aldo’s academy, he’s a huge fan of his,”
Nascimento said. “He also wants to know Cantagalo and a little of
my history. His life in Chechnya was very similar to life in our
slum, so he identified with me because I am a favela man. It’s
going to be an honor to have my pupil there.”