{"id":1163970,"date":"2026-02-23T10:45:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T15:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/?p=1163970"},"modified":"2026-02-23T10:45:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T15:45:16","slug":"dana-white-pours-cold-water-on-khamzat-chimaev-moving-to-light-heavyweight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/dana-white-pours-cold-water-on-khamzat-chimaev-moving-to-light-heavyweight\/","title":{"rendered":"Dana White pours cold water on Khamzat Chimaev moving to light heavyweight"},"content":{"rendered":"

The quest to become a two-division UFC<\/a> champion has been a storyline frequently reported in recent years. <\/p>\n

It was once a rare occurrence with only a handful of fighters accomplishing the feat. Randy Couture<\/a> and B.J. Penn<\/a> were the first to do it. Eight years would pass before Conor McGregor<\/a> joined the club. Georges St-Pierre<\/a>, Daniel Cormier<\/a>, Amanda Nunes<\/a> and Henry Cejudo<\/a> earned the accomplishment shortly after McGregor. <\/p>\n

Over the last four years, four other fighters have joined the growing list: Alex Pereira<\/a>, Jon Jones<\/a>, Ilia Topuria<\/a> and Islam Makhachev<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Middleweight titleholder Khamzat Chimaev<\/a> wants to move up to the light heavyweight division seeking to earn a second UFC division title. UFC CEO Dana White<\/a> shot down the idea during the UFC Houston Post-Fight Press Conference<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I’d like to see him defend his title at a weight first,” White said. “I’d like to see him defend his title before he talks about jumping around, you know? You’re going to keep going up in weight divisions without defending? Yeah, I’d rather see him defend.”<\/p>\n

Chimaev won the 185-pound undisputed championship at UFC 319 last August, dominating former titleholder Dricus du Plessis<\/a> on the way to a unanimous decision win. Chimaev has competed in the welterweight division and the middleweight division during his UFC career. <\/p>\n

On Feb. 20th, “Borz” posted simply “205” on X<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/articles\/dana-white-pours-cold-water-104516579.html<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The quest to become a two-division UFC champion has been a storyline frequently reported in recent years. It was once a rare occurrence with only…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1163970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1163970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163970\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1163970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1163970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1163970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}