UFC 279 is still a few days away, but Jake Shields already got a dose of Khamzat Chimaev.
The former Strikeforce champion and teammate of Nate Diaz said he was part of a run-in with Chimaev on Monnday while he was helping UFC middleweight Paulo Costa work on his grappling.
Shields told MMA Junkie Radio that Chimaev interrupted the grappling session between him and Costa at the UFC Performance Institute in Las Vegas, which he wasn’t happy about.
UFC star Khamzat Chimaev confronted former middleweight title challenger Paulo Costa while training for his upcoming clash with Nate Diaz.
Chimaev is set to face Diaz in the main event of UFC 279 on Sep. 10 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Before he takes on Diaz in what could be the Stockton-based veteran’s last fight under the banner, Chimaev had a bone to pick with Costa, who was last seen in action against the former UFC champion Luke Rockhold at the last pay-per-view in August.
“I was there this morning working out with Paulo Costa, going over some techniques and just drilling, and all of a sudden Khamzat starts yelling at us and cussing Paulo like, ‘Well, you want to fight?’” Shields said. “We look over, and it’s him and like 10 dudes.
“So Paulo jumps up and starts talking trash. I run over to back up Paulo because I don’t know if they’re trying to jump him, right?
There were a couple of guys, so I wasn’t sure if they were going to jump him. There were a couple of guys that we didn’t recognize.
“So we run over and start talking sh*t and Khamzat keeps going, ‘Let’s fight now, let’s fight now,’ but as he’s saying that he’s walking down the stairs. It seemed like it was kind of more of an act for the cameras than anything.
I guess someone said afterward that he was scoping us out for 10 minutes. If he wanted to fight Paulo, he would’ve run in there and started swinging on him, not stood outside the cage and say, ‘Let’s fight right now. Let’s fight right now.’
“It seemed kind of a weak thing. I guess that’s why he was upset because Paulo called him a fake gangster, and that was a perfect example of him being a fake gangster.”
On Monday, Sep. 5, Costa and “Borz” were both training at the UFC Performance Institute in Vegas when Chimaev confronted the Brazilian during a grappling session with Diaz’s teammate Jake Shields and things got very heated.