Khamzat Chimaev has revealed he was willing to surrender his entire fight purse to fight Nate Diaz… but he still wasn’t interested.
Chimaev was supposed to be going toe-to-toe with Diaz in the main event of last night’s card, but the fight was cancelled at the eleventh hour after he came in more than seven pounds overweight.
Diaz was instead matched with Tony Ferguson, with Chimaev fighting Kevin Holland. Both fighters got a ‘W’ – so all’s well that ends well, right? Apparently not.
In wake of his win over Holland, Chimaev couldn’t help but make one final slight at Diaz. Quoted by the Mirror, he claims that he offered the entire purse to Diaz, but that wasn’t enough to get him to take the fight.
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“I could make that weight, the doctor stopped that. So yeah, what I could do now? I was waiting [to see what] UFC said to me. I said I want to fight so I’ll give all my money to that guy.”
“This was almost two million… so I said give all my money to that guy, let him fight. If he is that gangster, he should fight for money. But he didn’t want to fight me, you know. So, who’s the gangster now?”
Naturally, these claims from Chimaev ought to be taken with a pinch of salt, but regardless, Diaz bowed out of the UFC with a thrilling win over Ferguson. We’re delighted to see that.
