Khamzat Chimaev and Colby Covington have been at each other’s throats for years. But now, it appears they are ready to take their rivalry to the mat, as Covington brought up the Chechen fighter’s alleged crypto scam while calling him out for a fight. At RAF 6, ‘Chaos’ appeared on stage to call out the likes of Arman Tsarukyan, Kamaru Usman, and Georges St-Pierre for a grappling-only RAF fight. However, Chimaev answered.

He challenged Covington to a fight. Now, the former interim welterweight champion has responded in kind. He recently appeared in an interview with journalist Helen Yee, who pressed Covington about his intentions to face Chimaev on the wrestling mat. In true Colby Covington fashion, he launched a barrage of insults, aiming to avenge fans over Khamzat Chimaev’s alleged past crypto scam.

“Yeah, Cu***ot is definitely someone I’d like to wrestle on the mats,” Covington said. “He scammed all his friends with that meme coin. He did a meme coin and put it out there. Made like 5 or 10 million and rug pulled on all his fans. So, I know the fans want me to get revenge, and they want me to slap him around. So, what better place to do it than on the RAF mat? I’d love to see Cu***ot over here. 

“So, Cu***ot, you got something coming for you, boy. You can hide in the Chechen mountains, do whatever you’re doing with the weird sheep over there, and stuff. But [you’ve] got another thing coming for you when I see you on these RAF mats.”

In July 2024, Khamzat Chimaev faced allegations of rug-pulling his fans after encouraging them to buy a new Solana-based memecoin, Smash. He promoted the coin across social media, which drove its value up to 0.01 SOL, about $1.35. Shortly afterward, however, a massive sell-off occurred, causing the token’s value to plunge by 91% to around 0.004 SOL, approximately $0.53.

“Yesterday, Khamzat Chimaev and his team dropped a cryptocoin called Smash and made multiple videos promoting it to his followers,” Crypto investigator ZachXBT explained. “And in under 24 hours, he rugs the coin and steals up to $1,000,000 from his fans that invested in his coin. And of course, the genius’s honest team and himself immediately got exposed for it.

“People were able to track the scam right back to him with the exact wallet addresses that he used. Khamzat went on to immediately delete all of the videos that he made promoting the scam right after he rugged. It’s just sad to see someone go from being on the verge of super stardom to scamming his own fans for peanuts. Because he likely only got a very small fraction of what was stolen.”

Per CoinTelegraph, at the very minimum, 71 percent of the Smash token’s supply was directly linked to insider wallets. These wallets were funded by the same Ethereum address that also funded the token’s developer address on Solana. Despite the allegations, Chimaev was never formally investigated by any law enforcement agency, the SEC, or other regulatory bodies for the Smash meme coin incident. 

Regardless, Chimaev is currently on a collision course with Sean Strickland for a title fight on May 9 at UFC 328 inside Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. So, it’s yet to be seen whether Covington’s antagonizing comments can convince ‘Borz’ to accept the challenge. In the meantime, Covington awaits his second RAF match against Dillon Danis on Saturday, March 28, 2026. 

In any case, Covington isn’t the only one to have criticized Chimaev for the alleged scam.

Sean Strickland lashes out at Khamzat Chimaev over rug pull

In January this year, Sean Strickland appeared in an interview with The Schomo, where he went off on the middleweight champion for running the alleged scam.

“I don’t even consider Chimaev a man, and let me tell you why,” Strickland said. “That little crypto scam that he had going on, I had someone approach me and say, ‘Sean,’ don’t quote me on this, I’m just ball-parking numbers, ‘I’ll give you $200,000 right off the start and 40/40% of this.’

Strickland claimed they wanted to create a meme coin of him, but he immediately refused the idea, branding them con artists. But Strickland believes Chimaev didn’t take that route when he was approached with the same scheme.

“What did Chimaev say? ‘I’m going to go f*** my fans over, I want to go f*** my fans over,’” Strickland added during the interview. “Chimaev, to me, it’s like ‘can you fight, can you wrestle? Sure.’ But I don’t look at you like a man, and you shouldn’t look at yourself like a man either.”

Chimaev became champion of the division last year after beating Dricus Du Plessis in a mind-numbingly boring fight, where he pinned the South African to the canvas and lay on him for five rounds. Despite Strickland’s confidence in himself ahead of the fight, the odds favor Chimaev to win dominantly. 

While Covington and Strickland use the scandal as ammunition, the allegations remain a significant stain on Chimaev’s reputation as he prepares for his next title defense.