Chris Avila is still criticizing Khamzat Chimaev for his weight miss that led to a seismic shift at UFC 279 earlier this month.
Originally scheduled to fight Nate Diaz in his final UFC appearance, Chimaev lost out on the opportunity after he missed weight by 7.5 pounds. That forced the promotion to reshuffle the pay-per-view event on 24 hours’ notice, which saw Diaz and Chimaev paired against different opponents in Tony Ferguson and Kevin Holland.
Both men earned wins, as Diaz submitted Ferguson via fourth-round guillotine and Chimaev steamrolled Holland for a first-round D’arce, but Avila was left with a sour taste in his mouth given all that happened during the week. On The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani, he slammed Chimaev for his unprofessional conduct.
“It was a crazy two weeks. Well, we were out there for two weeks, but the whole time, yeah, it got crazier and crazier day by day,” said Avila. “That whole turnaround was f—king insane. The whole Khamzat thing was very unprofessional. Good things happen to good people, so Nate’s a f—king good dude and f—king Khamzat’s not too good of a dude. He’s a piece of s—t for f—king missing weight, and that’s on him. He ain’t going to get that bag, so whatever. That was 2-0 for Nate, dog. That was two wins in one week.”
Avila also addressed the now-canceled fight between Diaz and Chimaev. The way he saw it, ‘Borz’ was on his way to suffering the same fate as ‘El Cucuy,’ which would have been the first loss of his professional career.
“All that talk of Khamzat’s over here going to destroy, whoop, whoop, whoop, was bulls—t anyway,” said Avila. “I think the fight would’ve turned out the same way it did with Tony, 100 percent. I believe so, yeah, either standing or the same way, unless all Khamzat wanted to do was f—king hold on for dear life, scared as f—k.”
Now that he has completed his UFC contract, Diaz has shifted his focus to other endeavors, such as the creation of Real Fight Inc. The promotion is hoping to sign fighters ‘who fit the brand of “Real Ninjas. Real Fighters. Real Shit,”’ and Avila is one of the first to represent it.
The Team Diaz product returns to the boxing ring against YouTube personality Dr. Mike — real name Mikhail Varshavski — on the pay-per-view portion of Jake Paul vs. Anderson Silva next month.