Saudi Arabia is well on its way to becoming the Mecca of combat sports. Having hosted the World Combat Games fights in the past year and with a stellar upcoming line-up, including the first heavyweight unification bout of this century between Tyson Fury vs. Oleksandr Usyk this May, the country is on its way up.

However, the kingdom is not limited to boxing and has also made moves to attract MMA fans. To this end, it hosted the first PFL vs. Bellator mega-card on February 24 and will be hosting its first UFC card this year. And as Dana White sets up to announce the match-up for what he claimed would be a historic title fight for UFC 300, a post by UFC superstar Khamzat Chimaev’s manager may have hinted at potential future fights.

Khamzat Chimaev may headline UFC Saudi Arabia debut

The UFC was originally supposed to hold its first-ever card in Saudi Arabia in March this year. However, the card, headlined by a bout between Jairzinho Rozenstruik and Shamil Gaziev reportedly failed to impress the Saudis, who are forking over a $20 million site fee to the world’s biggest MMA promotion, and the card was postponed.

Dana White rubbished these reports and claimed that he was the one who decided to move up the card and promised that it would be “the best Fight Night we’ve ever done” but would not feature a title fight. And many fans think that the card may feature Khamzat Chimaev due to ‘Borz’s previous comments.

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Chimaev, in an interview with FCR MMA1314, had revealed when he plans to fight next. ‘Borz’ said that he had turned down a UFC 300 booking since it coincided with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and expressed his desire to fight in Saudi Arabia in the summer.

“I want to fight in Saudi Arabia, but I don’t think anybody wants to fight me there. We’ll see what’s going to happen, so (I’m) just waiting for something,” the Chechen told FCR MMA. And his manager has come out with a post indicating that the Chechen’s next fight may be announced soon.

Chimaev also meets all of the criteria since he is not a champion and having one of the most popular superstars in the UFC headlining will certainly go a long way toward making the Saudi card “a memorable event”. This statement has sparked speculation about who he might fight next and Israel Adesanya emerges as the strongest candidate on paper.

Chimaev vs. Adesanya kills two birds with one stone for UFC

Khamzat Chimaev was the official number-one title contender for the middleweight title before he turned down a UFC 297 title shot due to a lingering injury. Since then a lot has changed in the division as Dricus Du Plessis defeated Sean Strickland via a razor-thin split decision at their UFC 297 bout in January.

And now he joins Israel Adesanya (who went on hiatus after shockingly losing his middleweight title to Sean Strickland at UFC 293) and Strickland in the queue for a 180-pound title shot. Perhaps the best way to eliminate one of the candidates and have the greatest Fight Night card ever would be to have Adesanya and Chimaev face each other.

Which is why Israel Adesanya vs. Khamzat Chimaev at the top of the UFC’s first Saudi card makes a lot of sense. And fans, needless to say, will be very excited to see two of the promotion’s biggest stars duke it out in a potential title eliminator. What do you think about this potential match-up?

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