UFC welterweight veteran contender Neil Magny has his eyes on a matchup with undefeated rising star Khamzat Chimaev.
Magny spoke with MMA Junkie's Mike Bohn and discussed Chimaev's impressive first-round submission victory over Li Jingliang at UFC 267 over the weekend. The 25-fight Octagon veteran reiterated his interest in wanting to face the 27-year old Chechen contender and added that his performance against Jingliang only has fueled Magny's interest in the bout.
“I was going about my day after the fight happened and I was getting messages with the same old routine saying, ‘No one wants to fight this guy.’ ‘I doubt on Monday when the new rankings come out that anyone in the top 10 will fight this guy.’ ‘He’s just a monster and everyone is going to do their best to avoid him,'” Magny said. “I’m sitting there reading these comments over and over again like, ‘What? No way. I wanted to fight this guy a year ago.’ Nothing has changed today. He did come back, he did look impressive against Jingliang, but for me, it adds fuel to the fire. It makes me want to fight him more than I did last year. Maybe it was a good thing this fight got pushed off as long as it did. A year ago I would have 100 percent might’ve looked past him, like, ‘Ah whatever. Some new kid that thinks he’s hot stuff. School this kid and show him what’s up.’ Coming out here and beating Jingliang the way he did, it definitely made me take a step back like, ‘Oh damn. This kid’s legit.’ He definitely has some skills that he brings to the table. To me, that’s the kind of fight that makes it more exciting – the guys that make you have to stay on your A-game. When I saw what he did to Jingliang, that made me more excited to fight him.”
He continued on to say he was offered a fight from the promotion on December 18, but his proposed opponent got injured shortly after. Magny's now hoping Chimaev will possibly accept the date and bout with him as the replacement.
“I was offered a fight for December 18 and the fight ended up falling through because the opponent got injured shortly after," Magny said. "As of now, the UFC is working actively to get me a replacement for December 18. So in a perfect world, this fight takes place on December 18. He absorbed zero damage against Jingliang, and I think in my opinion that would be a good turnaround for him. It would give him ample time to get back in the gym and get ready to face a tough opponent like me and go out there and put on an amazing fight. I want to go to war against a guy like Chimaev. I know for a fact that I can drag him into deep water and beat him. So, that’s what I’m looking to do against him.”
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