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UFC star Khamzat Chimaev confronted former middleweight title challenger Paulo Costa while training for his upcoming clash with Nate Diaz.
Chimaev is set to face Diaz in the main event of UFC 279 on September 10 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Before he takes on Diaz in what could be the Stockton-based veteran’s last fight under the banner, Chimaev had a bone to pick with Costa, who was last seen in action against former UFC champion Luke Rockhold at the last pay-per-view in August.
On Monday, September 5, Costa and “Borz” were both training at the UFC Performance Institute in Vegas when Chimaev confronted the Brazilian during a grappling session with Diaz’s teammate Jake Shields and things got very heated.
“You wanna f*** me up? Did you say you want to f*** me up?” asked Chimaev.
“You want to fight me? I want to fight you, do you want to fight me?” asked Costa.
“I wanna f*** you up right now,” said Chimaev. “You’re Brazilian p****. What happened with Israel [Adesanya]? He f***** your a**, yeah. You said you want to f*** me up, I’m here now. You’re p****. Israel f*** you in the a**, you like that? I know you like that, you little s***.”
Diaz’s Ally Shields Shared His Account of the Scene
Shields was present during the incident and shared his take on what he saw from Chimaev.
“I was there this morning working out with Paulo Costa, going over some techniques and just drilling, and all of a sudden Khamzat starts yelling at us and cussing Paulo like, ‘Well, you want to fight?’” Shields told MMA Junkie. “We look over, and it’s him and like 10 dudes.
“So Paulo jumps up and starts talking s***. I run over to back up Paulo because I don’t know if they’re trying to jump him, right? There were a couple of guys, so I wasn’t sure if they were going to jump him. There were a couple of guys that we didn’t recognize.”
Shields Claims Chimaev Was Just Putting on a Show
Shields believes Chimaev was not really trying to get violent with Costa. He dismissed the bluster as harmless and reasoned “Borz” got aggressive in front of the cameras to promote his upcoming fight. He labeled the Chechen-born Swede a “fake gangster” for his actions.
“So we run over and start talking s*** and Khamzat keeps going, ‘Let’s fight now, let’s fight now,’ but as he’s saying that he’s walking down the stairs. It seemed like it was kind of more of an act for the cameras than anything. I guess someone said afterward that he was scoping us out for 10 minutes. If he wanted to fight Paulo, he would’ve run in there and started swinging on him, not stood outside the cage and say, ‘Let’s fight right now. Let’s fight right now.’”
“It seemed kind of a weak thing. I guess that’s why he was upset because Paulo called him a fake gangster, and that was a perfect example of him being a fake gangster.”
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