Khamzat Chimaev has fired back at Israel Adesanya.

After Chimaev knocked out Gerald Meerschaert in 17 seconds he said he would finish both Kamaru Usman and Adesanya right now. The middleweight champion obviously did not take too kindly to those words and questioned Chimaev’s level of competiton.

“I don’t even know the guy, I haven’t seen his fights yet,” Adesanya said to Yahoo! Sports. “I saw the presser and he was just talking s**t. He was just casting his net. Have you seen him fight? Rat lip? Meh …

“Tim said he fought low level competition,” Adesanya added. “So he thinks I’m an easy fight … that’s interesting. I mean, everyone does this when they’re coming up, casting the net wide. Yeah, keep casting.”

Now, Khamzat Chimaev became aware of those comments and took to his social media to fire back at the middleweight champion.

https://twitter.com/KChimaev/status/1308756877451304960

“@stylebender (Israel Adesanya) what do you said about me it will cost you your belt if you’re still the champion Good luck,” Chimaev wrote.

Israel Adesanya is looking to defend his middleweight title against Paulo Costa in the main event of UFC 253. It is a highly-anticipated fight but Chimaev has already said he will fly to Fight Island right now and be the backup fighter.

With the way Khamzat Chimaev is going, it seems likely he will get a title shot in the next or so. He is already 3-0 in the UFC since making his debut in July with three stoppage wins. There is no question the Swede has been impressive but he still has yet to fight a ranked opponent so he will need to do that first.

For now, Adesanya is focused on his fight but perhaps he will be starring down Chimaev across the Octagon for the belt in the very near future.

Do you think we will see Khamzat Chimaev fight Israel Adesanya?