Khamzat Chimaev and Gerald Meerschaert are scheduled to meet this weekend in a welterweight division clash at UFC Vegas 11.
Chimaev and Meerschaert had a brief altercation recently at the fighter hotel, which Chimaev says began after he confronted Meerschaert about some alleged disrespectful words said about him by Meerschaert.
“He was here – I met him,” Chimaev said during the UFC Vegas 11 media day (via Damon Martin of MMA Fighting). “I said he speak too much, he talk too much in the media. He disrespected me. He think I didn’t like that, but I said to him you like to talk too much. He said, ‘Yeah,’ I said I’m going to smash your face, chicken. He said nothing.”
Meerschaert says that the altercation between himself and Chimaev was brief, but Chimaev was surrounded by a bunch of his friends.
“We passed each other in the hallway earlier today – it was pretty quick,” Meerschaert said. “He tried, I think he was trying to talk trash to me. He just kept saying, ‘don’t talk too much’ and I was kind of like ‘OK, we’re fighting Saturday, we’re not going to do anything now’ because I want to make money. I don’t know what his deal is. Not only that, but I don’t think it’s a very cool thing to flex when you’ve got a bunch of your friends with you and stuff. Like I had one guy with me, he had a bunch of guys with him. Dude, I get it. You don’t have to like me, I don’t have to like you but let’s just save it for the cage.”
UFC Vegas 11 takes place on Saturday, September 19 from the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, Nevada with Colby Covington and Tyron Woodley headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, which streams live on ESPN+.
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