Khamzat Chimaev Net Worth 2026: The $1M Diaz Purse, Bonuses and Maybachs

UFC 279 in September 2022 was supposed to be Chimaev against Nate Diaz in the main event. Chimaev missed weight by seven and a half pounds, the card was reshuffled, and he ended up submitting Kevin Holland in the co-main while Diaz fought Tony Ferguson. Nevada did not release the purses.

Chimaev did. "For the fight against Diaz it was $1,000,000 and the PPV percent," he said in an interview reported by Sportskeeda, adding that he was still paid the $1 million after the switch to Holland. He also said Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of Chechnya, had been ready to pay Diaz $2 million on top to make the fight happen. That remains the only hard purse figure of his career from the man himself.

Everything before it is estimate territory. Sportskeeda's unsourced fight-by-fight table runs $73,500 for the John Phillips debut in July 2020, $77,500 for Rhys McKee ten days later, $143,500 for Gerald Meerschaert, $154,500 for Li Jingliang and $205,000 for Gilbert Burns at UFC 273. Florida, where UFC 273 took place, does not release UFC pay, so those are guesses dressed as data.

Bonuses are the cleanest money in Chimaev's file: seven of them, $350,000 before tax. He won Performance of the Night for the Phillips submission on July 16, 2020, the McKee stoppage on July 26, 2020, the 17-second knockout of Meerschaert on September 19, 2020, the Li Jingliang choke at UFC 267 in October 2021, the Robert Whittaker face-crank at UFC 308 in October 2024, and the du Plessis title win at UFC 319. The Burns fight at UFC 273 in April 2022 earned Fight of the Night plus the Crypto.com fan bonus.

He did not get one at UFC 328. The bonuses that night were $100,000 each, and they went to Jim Miller, Yaroslav Amosov, Joshua Van and Tatsuro Taira.

Days before UFC 294 in October 2023, ESPN's Brett Okamoto reported that Chimaev had signed a new multi-fight UFC contract. No fight count or dollar figure has ever leaked. He beat Kamaru Usman by majority decision on that card, then needed a full year to return, choking out Whittaker in Abu Dhabi at UFC 308.

CelebrityNetWorth estimated his UFC 294 payday at $2.35 million and UFC 308 at about $1.05 million. Those are third-party estimates with no documents behind them. What the Usman and Whittaker wins did do was make him the undisputed next challenger at 185, which is where the real money started.

Chimaev beat du Plessis by unanimous decision at the United Center on August 16, 2025, smothering him on the mat for five rounds. He took home Performance of the Night and became the first UAE-based athlete to win a UFC title, having moved to the Emirates in 2023 and received citizenship in January 2025.

Illinois did not release purses. The one disclosed line is the outfitting money: Bloody Elbow reported Chimaev received $32,000 in Promotional Guidelines Compliance pay as the challenger, while du Plessis got the champion's $42,000. BetMGM estimated Chimaev's total take at $2.68 million against $3.8 million for du Plessis. That is an estimate, but a headlining champion with points on a Chicago pay-per-view is comfortably a seven-figure night.

The first defense did not go to plan. On May 9, 2026, at the Prudential Center in Newark, Strickland took the belt by split decision, 47-48, 48-47, 48-47, in front of 17,783 fans and a $7.5 million gate. Thirteen of 24 media outlets scored it for Chimaev. New Jersey did not disclose purses. EssentiallySports projected $1.5 million to $2.5 million for him and called the figures estimates.

Dana White said afterward that Chimaev told him, "I don't want to fight here again. I want to move up," meaning light heavyweight. By September he had changed his tune, telling MMA Junkie he wanted a 2026 return, ideally the Strickland rematch, or Caio Borralho, and that "if nothing happens in October or December, I'll take a little break."

Then on October 6, 2026, he put his own money on the table. "Strickland, I'll pay you $1 million. Send me your location and let's fight. I don't care if it's outside or inside the cage." The UFC has not booked it.

Chimaev's off-cage income is a grab bag. In October 2023 he launched two perfumes with Superz, "Khamzat-Smesh" and "Khamzat-The Wolf," at 144 euros for 50ml with a first run of 5,000 pieces. He has a Full Violence apparel collaboration from May 2025, deals listed with Smilodox fitness wear, YOFLEET car rental and Dragon Energy, which put his face on a can in South Africa, and he reportedly parked his Burns fight bonus in the blockchain platform Blockasset. He also signed a 10-year fan-investment contract with Royaltiz.

Then there are the cars, which are gifts rather than earnings but are part of how he lives. After the title win in August 2025, Kadyrov presented him with a 2025 Maybach GLS 600, a vehicle with a base price near $180,000, at Grozny airport, with regional agencies saying a Kadyrov family foundation paid for it. In spring 2026 he appeared in advertising for K13, an energy drink produced in Chechnya and owned by Kadyrov's son Adam, and within a day received another Mercedes-Maybach, reported at roughly 20 million rubles. Radio Liberty counted it as at least his fourth Mercedes from the family since 2021. He trains Kadyrov's sons and lists Fight Club Akhmat as his team.

Since losing the belt, Chimaev has been earning in Real American Freestyle. He signed in April 2026 on undisclosed terms, pinned Dillon Danis in 44 seconds at RAF 10 in St. Louis in June, pinned Tyron Woodley in the first round at RAF Moscow in September, and beat Gilbert Burns 15-4 at RAF 13 in Miami on September 18. He said at the RAF 13 press conference he expects to wrestle Colby Covington next in Abu Dhabi, which had not been officially announced.

He is open about why. "I came here to make money. I'm not hiding that," he told Red Corner MMA after Moscow. "When I didn't have a visa, I was fighting once a year; money wasn't as good."

He has also talked about where it goes. In an April 2026 interview he said he spent "600, 700 thousand dollars or something like that" building a wrestling gym in his home village, and that "I make more money out of the UFC because of who I became." We found no evidence he owns a gym in the UAE; his training home before Dubai was Allstars in Stockholm.

Confirmed: $1 million plus points for UFC 279, from his own mouth. $350,000 in bonuses. $32,000 in outfitting pay at UFC 319 and the champion's $42,000 tier at UFC 328. A $700,000 gym he says he paid for. Everything else is inference.

The third-party numbers: CelebrityNetWorth put him at $4 million in mid-2025 with career UFC earnings of $3.6 million to $4.3 million, before the title fight and the Strickland loss. EssentiallySports updated to $3 million to $4 million in May 2026. Sportskeeda's $1 million figure is years stale and contradicts its own earnings table. All three are estimates.

Our estimate: $8 million to $11 million in career gross from the UFC, bonuses, RAF and endorsements, and a net worth of $5 million to $8 million after tax, a large camp and the cash he has put into Chechnya. If the Strickland rematch happens, the gross jumps by a seven-figure night. If he really does take that break, this is where it sits.