Khamzat Chimaev has no interest in facing Olympic wrestlers in Real American Freestyle, but he would be open to grappling with fellow UFC middleweight Bo Nickal.Chimaev will be making the first defense of his UFC Middleweight Championship this weekend against Sean Strickland, looking to extend his unblemished 15-0 MMA record. He signed with RAF in April to make a return to freestyle wrestling, though he told Adam Zubayraev that he would not be entertaining matches with the likes of Kyle Snyder or Abdulrashid Sadulaev."I could grapple with Bo Nickal," he said. "He switched to MMA, too, he's an MMA fighter now. It's interesting to compete with fighters who are in MMA. But how does it make sense to wrestle an Olympic champion? What's the point? That's more like a super fight. There's no real point in doing that right now."He continued, "If I wanted to wrestle Snyder or Sadulaev, I would've gone to the Olympics. What's the point? I didn't spend years in the gym doing thousands and thousands of double-leg entries."Chimaev said the last time he worked on double-legs was with fellow UFC and RAF fighter Arman Tsarukyan. Although he said Tsarukyan was just joking around and that was in itself seven or eight years ago."That's why MMA and wrestling are two completely different sports. I keep saying this but people don't understand," he concluded.Snyder won gold in freestyle wrestling at the 2016 Olympics, becoming the first to return from the games and win a NCAA title, and currently reigns as the RAF Light Heavyweight Champion. Sadulaev won gold at the 2016 Olympics before moving up a weight class and beating Snyder to win gold at the 2020 games.
