Gerald Meerschaert revealed Khamzat Chimaev got in his face with no cameras around just for “the love of the game” ahead of their UFC fight in 2020.
Chimaev was just two fights in to his UFC run at the time, and the hype train was full steam ahead. At a pre-fight press conference, Chimaev consistently cut off Meerschaert’s responses to questions, which he admits was annoying. However, a backstage interaction took place that Meerschaert hasnt’ revealed until now, which gave him an insight to Chimaev’s true personality.
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“Look, I got nothing against Khamzat. We fought; it’s over. He’s done great. That dude’s the man. All respect,” Meerschaert told The Casuals MMA. “But I do remember we met in the hall – this was during COVID. We see him in the hallway, it was me and Brendan Allen, and then him and his coaches. He walks up to me, and kind of gets in my face, and we start talking sh*t back and forth. It was like the dumbest sh*t talk, like you know when two guys see each other and we’re trying to say, ‘Oh yeah? Yeah? You wanna?’ Like, we’re both – I don’t know exactly what he’s saying, I probably said some dumb sh*t, but we’re both just like – he got aggressive, and I was like, ‘Who is this for?'”
Meerschaert thought that maybe Chimaev was provoked by a meme he posted in the lead-up to the fight, but couldn’t be sure if that was the case. He was taken aback by the fact that Chimaev confronted him in the hallway with no one there to witness it aside from his teammate and Chimaev’s coaches, who turned out to be very nice to him, which added another layer to the perplexing altercation.
“We got in each other’s face, and there was like no one around,” Meerschaert said. “In the back of my head, I’m like, ‘There’s nobody else here.’ So like, he’s just doing it for the love of the game, which like, mad respect. He’s just doing his thing, no matter who’s there or not, which is better than, ‘Oh, I need cameras.’ But he does this, he walks away, and his coaches, ‘Oh, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.’ All the most polite like, ‘Yeah, we know he’s crazy.’ But I was just confused, they were so nice. Why is he like this? We’re gonna fight, and some guys are different, like they gotta get in that place before and after, but we’re gonna punch each other. Well, actually, you are gonna punch me, in this case. I wanted to punch him, but it didn’t work out that way.”
Meerschaert only lasted 17 seconds in the octagon with Chimaev. He was knocked out with a right cross. Chimaev has gone on to win every fight since, and captured the middleweight title in his most recent fight at UFC 319 against Dricus Du Plessis.
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True to Meerschaert’s story, there have been multiple instances over the years of Chimaev being aggressive backstage, such as when he shoved Ian Machado Garry in Qatar, or when the UFC 279 press conference was canceled due to what UFC CEO Dana White called a “big sh*t show” backstage involving Chimaev and other fighters.
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Khamzat Chimaev’s past UFC foe reveals intense backstage altercation
