The two were set to fight last June, but ‘Borz’ pulled out due to lingering health complications. Since then, the 30-year-old has made several changes to his team and camp and seems to have improved things.

Khamzat Chimaev makes fans nervous with only twelve minutes left

While Chimaev’s fight against Whittaker took place in Abu Dhabi, the official weigh-ins took place early this Friday morning local time.

Fighters had a two-hour window in which to weigh in, but they must have notified the committee if they wanted to attempt to make weight in the first hour.

‘The Reaper’ wasted no time, weighing in at 185.5 pounds and keeping his end of the bargain. But as time went on, fans started to become a little more skeptical about Chimaev’s weight cut.

Historically, ‘Borz’ has struggled to make weight at both 170 pounds and 185 pounds, but has only missed weight once when he was scheduled to fight Nate Diaz.

Despite that, with only 15 minutes left for the fighters to intervene, both Ilia Topuria and Max Holloway had successfully reached 145 pounds while the main event was official, and it was just Chimaev that everyone was waiting for.

“Sorry I’m late guys, I went shopping,” Chimaev joked as he finally walked to the scale with only a few minutes to spare.

Luckily he arrived in time, the 30-year-old stepped on the scale weighing 186 pounds and was even good enough to make a joke. He looked possibly in the best shape he has seen during his UFC tenure thus far.

Dana White boosts Whittaker and Chimaev with commentary on the title fight

While this is a huge middleweight title fight, it became less significant when Dana White admitted that Sean Strickland will likely fight Dricus Du Plessis next for the title, despite only one win since losing the title.

That said, the UFC boss somewhat went back on his word last Thursday when asked if Chimaev or Whittaker could skip Strickland.

“Let’s see how the fight plays out. We’ll have to see how it plays out before we start talking about jumping lines and who would get the next title shot,” White told Main Event TV.

“In this division, (Whittaker vs. Chimaev) is the worst fight you can have right now. Whoever wins, it’s a good thing for them,” he continued.

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