Khamzat Chimaev is out of the fight against Robert Whittaker which was scheduled for 22nd of June in Saudi. The young star is once again battling with major health issues. In the announcement video Dana White went as far as to say Chimaev is “violently and I mean violently ill”. This is obviously disappointing as many were looking forward to seeing how Khamzat would deal with his biggest test.
Whittaker’s Replacement Opponent
With Khamzat out Whittaker has been given a replacement opponent Ikram Aliskerov. Ikram is a highly touted Russian prospect in the UFC who is 15-1 his only loss actually being to Khamzat in 2019 by first round KO. Since then Ikram has been improving and in his run in the UFC has secured 1st round finishes against all his opponents.
Interestingly, Ikram has been struggling with opponenets and if he wins this will be his big break through. Ikram was supposed to fight Paulo Costa and Nassourdine Imavov in 2023 but those fights fell through. He was also scheduled to fight Anthony “Fluffy” Hernandez in 2025 but that also fell through. Ikram was supposed to be fighting Antonio Trocoli this weekend on the Taira vs Perez card however he has been pulled from that to fight Whittaker.
This will be a huge step up for Ikram. Ikram is not even ranked in the top 15 although is very close and was scheduled to fight ranked opponents those never materialised. So, fighting Robert Whittaker one of the best fighters in the division is a massive jump. Regardless of how he performs Ikram should be praised for accepting such a risky fight this early in his career.
This does beg the question why Ikram? Although Ikram is highly regarded he is not ranked and probably shouldn’t be fighting Whittaker this early in his career. Although, that being said similar things were said about Steve Erceg and he very nearly beat Pantoja. A replacement that would have made sense is Sean Strickland however he did fight quite recently. Presumably offers were made to other ranked guys but none accepted.
Khamzat Chimaevs Poor Health
For Khamzat Chimaev this is devastating. Not only for his career with this being his biggest fight and being touted as a title eliminator by Dana White but also health wise. This is not the first time Borz has been struck with severe illness. From 2020-2021 Khamzat was afflicted with Covid which caused scheduled fights against Leon Edwards to be cancelled.
Covid massively impacted Chimaev’s health causing the star to cough up blood and contemplate retirement. Ultimately Khamzat opted to not retire and eventually recovered enough to fight again. However, many speculate that covid may have been the start of Khamzats cardio issues which surfaced against Burns and notably Usman. In those fights Khamzat gassed particularly against Usman where after round 1 he was extremely tired.
Chimaev also had health issues more recently prior to what’s happening now. In 2024 after the Usman fight Khamzat posted then took down some pictures of him looking very ill. In the captions of the now deleted posted Khamzat essentially was saying this is one of the reasons he was out for so long.
And now again he is very ill to the point he’s had to withdraw from the Whittaker fight. So, health has been a big issue for Khamzat and continues to cause him problems. We could very well see Khamzat have a Zabit esc career where he never reaches the top level due to illness and retires prematurely. Hopefully that is not the case and we see Khamzat make a full recovery whilst Whittaker fights Ikram.
Featured image credits to Embed from Getty Images
