Chimaev was scheduled to fight Robert Whittaker on June 22 in the main event of UFC on ABC 6 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, but pulled out due to health issues. Ikram Aliskerov agreed to replace him.
"The problem is that we don't know what's wrong with him. Every time a fight approaches, he starts to get sick. Now he hasn't trained for 3-5 days, so we couldn't let him out to fight.
I remember Chimaev as a young guy on fight island. He asked to let him fight twice in two weeks and we scheduled him to fight. He looked great. But now he's sick. I don't know what else to say. And no, he's not available to us, our doctors can't see him and check him out. We don't have access to him, so it's not easy," MMA Fighting quoted White as saying.