Chris Weidman Replaces Injured Colby Covington Against Khamzat Chimaev at RAF Abu Dhabi

Former UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman steps in on five days' notice to headline Saturday's card at Etihad Arena, with the inaugural RAF light heavyweight crossover title on the line.

Colby Covington is out, and Chris Weidman is in. Real American Freestyle announced on Monday that Covington has withdrawn from Saturday's RAF Abu Dhabi main event through injury, and the former UFC middleweight champion Weidman will replace him against Khamzat Chimaev.

The switch changes the championship on the line as well as the opponent. Chimaev had been due to challenge Covington for the RAF cruiserweight crossover title. Instead, he will now meet Weidman for the inaugural RAF light heavyweight crossover championship at 215 pounds, headlining the card at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi on Saturday, November 14.

RAF announced the change on November 9. The promotion attributed Covington's withdrawal to injury but gave no detailed medical information.

Chimaev did not wait long to react. "Colbi is not coming," he wrote on X. "He is scared."

Covington had won five consecutive RAF matches before pulling out. He beat Weidman himself in the 42-year-old's only previous RAF appearance, a 5-4 decision at RAF 9 on May 30 — Weidman's freestyle wrestling debut after his UFC career ended.

That history makes Saturday a rematch of sorts, and a strange one: Weidman lost to the man he is replacing, and now gets the title shot Covington vacated.

Weidman is no stranger to the biggest stages. A two-time NCAA Division I All-American, he made history in 2013 when he ended Anderson Silva's 17-fight, seven-year UFC winning streak to win the middleweight title. He defended the belt three times before losing it to Luke Rockhold in December 2015.

Chimaev, a former UFC middleweight champion himself, has been the RAF circuit's most dangerous crossover star since his debut on June 13, when he beat Dillon Danis. He has since added wins over Tyron Woodley and Gilbert Burns, and Saturday was supposed to be his first RAF title fight.

The rest of the card stays intact. Arman Tsarukyan meets Neiman Gracie in the co-main event, Zabit Magomedsharipov faces Giga Chikadze, and Merab Dvalishvili takes on Marlon Moraes. Thirteen matches are scheduled, with four RAF championships on the line.

The event airs live on FOX Nation in the United States and Starzplay in the Middle East and North Africa, with the first bell at 11 a.m. ET.

RAF matches are real competition, not entertainment wrestling: three two-minute periods, decided by pinfall, technical fall with a 10-point lead, or decision after the full match.

For Weidman, it is five days to prepare for the most feared wrestler in the sport's crossover scene. For Chimaev, the opponent changed. The target did not.