Khamzat Chimaev arguably stole the show tonight. The Russian born fighter has taken the UFC by storm since his debut at Fight Island. His relentless pursuit of wanting to fight as often as possible has drawn a lot of fans close to him. Earlier tonight, ‘Borz’ proved that he had more to his game than just wrestling by knocking out Meerschaert. 

In the post-fight press conference, Dana White was asked about Chimaev’s next match against Demian Maia and if he needs to go higher than Maia. He replied, “That’s what everybody is saying. Now, this guy is special man, it’s true. All the fights that I’ve had, you’ll have guys be like yeah I wanna turn around fast and let me see how I feel tomorrow, let me talk to my team. This guy is like I wanna fight here again on Fight Island. So I turned him around.”

“I called everybody and said I’m going to do it, we’re going to turn this kid around. We turn him around, he fights again and does it again. Now it’s like I wanna come to Vegas and I wanna fight in Vegas. I’ve never experienced this with anyone…not even remotely close.”

The UFC President added, “He might fight before Maia, then fight Maia too. Maia is not going to be ready in time for this kid.”

Read: Dana White reveals huge plan for Khamzat Chimaev

Khamzat Chimaev proves that he is more than ‘just a wrestler’ 

Going into the fight there was a lot of hype surrounding Khamzat, as he had beaten both of his previous opponents comprehensively. Albeit via his wrestling. There was speculation whether his stand up was as good as his wrestling. 

In Gerald Meerschaert, Chimaev was up against a veteran of the sport. This was his eleventh fight in the promotion, and it would not be an ‘easy’ match for Chimaev. 

Chimaev took all of 17 seconds to silence all the doubts about his striking when he knocked out Meerschaert in the very first exchange of their fight.

After a dominating win like that, do you still think Chimaev should face Maia? Or should the UFC give him a higher-ranked opponent? If so, who?