Michael Chiesa was never going to fight Kamaru Usman at UFC 263.
It was never a thing, but did Chiesa correct the record to let everyone know that he was actually going to face Vicente Luque in his next fight? Of course not.
When you’re in a business where it pays to be in the conversation, and it pays really well to be mentioned alongside the current titleholder, you shut your mouth and let other people promote. If Usman’s longtime manager Ali Abdelaziz wanted to say his client was more interested in facing Chiesa at UFC 263 than running back a rivalry with Colby Covington, as he recently did, that would only help “Maverick” in the long run.