This was announced by the American’s manager, Lance Spode.
“Chimaev hasn’t even been mentioned in the discussion,” Spode said on MMA Mania’s Sound & Pound podcast. “Maybe they’re waiting for something, or the hand injury is really as bad as they’re saying – I’ve heard a lot of versions. Again, Sean is a guy who will do what the UFC says as long as it makes sense for him financially.”
Earlier, UFC officials officially announced a middleweight title fight between Sean Strickland and South African Dricus Du Plessis to headline UFC 297 in Toronto on Jan. 20, while Khamzat Chimaev said he turned down a title fight due to a hand injury but plans to face the winner of the championship bout.
Recall that the fight between Hamzat Chimaev and Kamaru Usman, which took place on October 21 at UFC 294 in Abu Dhabi, went all three rounds and ended with the victory of “Borz” by a majority of the judges’ votes. By defeating the Nigerian, the Chechen fighter moved from the fourth position in the welterweight rankings to the top 10 of the UFC’s middleweight division, where he ranked eighth.