A major welterweight fight between Khamzat Chimaev and Gilbert Burns is rumored to be in the works for UFC 273 on April 9th at the Barclay Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Word of the potential fight originally stemmed from Burns, who revealed earlier this week that a fight with Chimaev was now looking increasingly likely.
“I’m already in negotiations for my next fight,” Burns had told Combate. “A lot of people did not accept, so the negotiation has been a little more complicated. I keep watching fights and when somebody in my division is fighting, I go crazy wishing that they would call me out, but nobody does. We’ll see when this next fight comes.
“We’ve been negotiating, we’re looking at an April slot. We’re just trying to establish an opponent. It could be Chimaev. He’s one of the few guys who has accepted and we’re still negotiating. We’ll see. It could be him next.”
Chimaev has since also posted private messages between himself and Burns in which they both appear to verbally agree to fight at UFC 273, with ‘Borz’ telling him “Yes, let’s go brother,” when asked about the April 9th date.
That being said, there’s still a big difference between the two fighters themselves agreeing to the bout and the UFC actually going ahead and booking it, and as things stand it’s yet to be made official.
However, UFC color-commentator Michael Bisping appears to be all-in on the potential fight and is throwing his weight behind the idea.
“So potentially, UFC 273, co-main event I’ll say, is Khamzat Chimaev taking on Gilbert Burns,” Bisping said on his YouTube channel. “Yet to see if it becomes formal or not, but sign me up, take my money, I can’t wait for that one. What a fight that is.”
If it did materialize it would be a somewhat risky fight for former title contender Burns as he is the current No.2 contender in the 170lb division and is coming off a win over Stephen Thompson that leaves him not far off fighting for the belt again if he can continue to string wins together.
Meanwhile, the undefeated Chimaev has a huge amount of hype behind him after racking up four wins in a row since joining the UFC in 2020, but is still only ranked No.11 in the division and so would welcome the opportunity to take on a high ranked opponent to help accelerate his own rise towards title contention.
