Khamzat Chimaev will return to action against Robert Whittaker in the main event of UFC On ABC 6 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on June 22nd.
The UFC had originally planned to make their Saudi Arabian debut in March, but the Fight Night card was switched back to Las Vegas amid rumors that the regions officials were unhappy with the quality of the card that was being assembled.
The event was then rescheduled for June and the card is being built from scratch, with Chimaev vs. whittaker certainly being a much higher profile headliner than before.
Still unbeaten in his 13-fight career, the 29-year-old Chimaev went up against Kamaru Usman in his last middleweight appearance at UFC 294 in October, winning by majority decision against the former welterweight champion.
Having now amassed seven wins in a row between 170lbs and 185lbs during his UFC run there had been talk of a potential middleweight title shot afterwards, but that hasn’t materialized and instead he’ll now be facing a former champion in the No.3 ranked Whittaker.
The 33-year-old Whittaker went up against Paulo Costa at UFC 298 last month and emerged with a unanimous decision victory. Prior to that Whittaker had lost via TKO to Dricus du Plessis, who became only the 2nd fighter to defeat him in his 16 fights at 185lbs (the other being Israel Adesanya).
Chimaev vs. Whittaker headlines a card that will be the first to air on ABC since last June’s Josh Emmett vs. Ilia Topuria event.
