Khamzat Chimaev or Shavkat Rakhmonov - Who's more likely to be champion in 2024?

[Killer Kadoogan]

out of the new batch/crop of fighters, Kamzhat, Shavkat, Bo Nickal are my top fighters that have championship potential.

Kzmaht is weird though, dude obviously has some legal problems and can't fight, something is up. Shavkat / Bo Nickal, they just need the matchups already.

 

[Xer0]

Khamzat said he was going to kill everybody. Shavkat actually shows up and kills everybody. Shavkat is the true king.

 

[Guy LeDouche]

I don’t know?….the guy that is active and actually fights?

 

[mkt]

It is not even close. Shav fights and beats top guys in his weight class.

Khamzat is a social media guy who fights once a year and has never beaten any top 20 guys in his weight class. Khamzat had 1 fight in 2023, against a career Welterweight, and it was a shockingly close fight. His best win in his weight class, Meerschaert, ranked outside the top 30.

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Exactly. I'm wondering what WW Khamzat will try to fight at MW next. Gastelum? Colby? It will likely be someone a few years past their prime who would be small at MW.

 

[Striker Fox]

Both are one win away fom a titleshot, so who gets there first is anyone's guess

I'd like to see Shavkat vs Usman, and Khamzat vs Whittaker next

 

[Striker Fox]

Exactly. I'm wondering what WW Khamzat will try to fight at MW next. Gastelum? Colby? It will likely be someone a few years past their prime who would be small at MW.

Remember tho Khamzat was scheduled to fight Costa who is a massive MW.

Whittaker is a pretty small MW and former WW. Hopefully him.

 

[mkt]

Remember tho Khamzat was scheduled to fight Costa who is a massive MW.

Whittaker is a pretty small MW and former WW. Hopefully him.

True, though Costa is horribly inconsistent and hasn't looked good since 2019 against Yoel. He looked very bad against Israel and Vettori, and pretty bad against a completely shot Rockhold even though he won. (He couldn't finish Luke, which Mike Perry was able to do just months later in bareknuckle). I think Khamzat was banking on this trend of Costa's downslide over the last 4 years.