UFC president Dana White has confirmed that Khamzat Chimaev will fight for the title if he can beat Nate Diaz.

The rise of Khamzat Chimaev has been pretty remarkable to watch over the course of the last few years.

As a product of the pandemic era, Chimaev made sure to take advantage of every single opportunity that was awarded to him by the Ultimate Fighting Championship. In addition to having a few impressive outings at 185 pounds, Khamzat made sure to make it known that he was most interested in toppling the welterweight division before making the move up on a full-time basis.

His most recent outing, which was an absolute war against Gilbert Burns, also proved that he isn’t afraid to take a big shot from one of the top 15’s most dangerous strikers.

Some felt as if that victory was enough to earn him a title shot but the promotion clearly wants to build him up even more, as evidenced by the fact they’ve put him in a pay-per-view main event against Nate Diaz.

This bout is being viewed by a lot of pundits as fairly one-sided given just how dominant Chimaev has been up to this point in his career. Of course, when it comes to someone like Nate Diaz, you just never know what could happen - regardless of how poor his relationship with Dana White and the UFC may be.

During his post-fight media scrum after the Contender Series last night, White was asked whether or not it’s fair to say Chimaev could receive a title shot if he beats Diaz.

“It’s fair. I don’t ever do that s***, but it’s fair to say that if he wins, that’s the fight to make. He’s [Usman] already beaten everybody twice in the top whatever, so yeah, that makes sense.”

“Huge [Usman vs Chimaev], it’s huge, especially if he wins the Nate fight, absolutely.” 

When will it happen?

UFC 279 is currently scheduled to go down on September 10 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The card itself isn’t the strongest PPV of the year on paper but in terms of the main event, you can bet there are going to be a lot of eyes on this one.