Sean Strickland may have reclaimed the UFC middleweight title at UFC 328, but after the fight, the outspoken champion admitted his heated rivalry with Khamzat Chimaev might not have been exactly what fans believed it was.
Strickland shocked many fight fans on Saturday night when he upset Chimaev in the UFC 328 main event to become a two-time middleweight champion. The fight was built around months of tension between the two men, with UFC CEO Dana White even describing the rivalry as one of the nastiest feuds the promotion had seen in years.
After five brutal rounds inside the Octagon, Strickland and Chimaev embraced, shared words of respect, and even celebrated together inside the cage. Chimaev later wrapped the middleweight title around Strickland’s waist in a moment that caught many fans off guard.
“I sell fights,” Strickland said during his post-fight press conference. “Look at the UFC, how f—— boring it is. Really, the UFC is so f—— boring. Do you even know half the roster? Other than Alex Pereira, and he doesn’t even talk. He’s just big and scary.”
Strickland and Chimaev undeniably helped generate massive attention for UFC 328. Their pre-fight press conference became one of the most-watched media events in UFC history, with fans fully buying into the hostility between the two middleweights.
According to Strickland, however, the respect came naturally once the fight was over.
“There is something, unless you’ve experienced it, you just don’t know what it’s like,” Strickland explained. “When you go and fight another man, your soul is just exposed. When you’re bleeding and he’s bleeding, you just gain this level of respect for one another.”
“You kind of become someone’s brother after you and him try to die, win or lose.”
Despite that mutual respect, Sean Strickland admitted he genuinely felt tension with Chimaev during their time training together at Xtreme Couture.
“At the moment, the guy kicked me in the balls! What the f—!” Strickland said. “I don’t like to be threatened. Maybe it’s just who he is as a person, but when he was in the gym, he had that threatening demeanor.”
“And maybe it’s that little man inside of me, but when you threaten me, I want to murder you. I want to kill you.”
“I could have manufactured the whole situation in my head, to be honest,” Strickland added. “There’s times when you’re mentally not well, you’ll have interactions with people, and sometimes your brain thinks something else happened.”
“So there’s a chance that I just hallucinated that entire interaction with Chimaev.”
Sean Strickland also revealed that, despite becoming champion again, he still battles doubt before every fight, including against Chimaev.
“Every fight I’ve ever had, 30 or 40 minutes before the fight, I think I’m gonna lose,” Strickland admitted. “I’ve never thought I was gonna win a fight.”
“We all kind of have this voice in our head. You don’t think there’s a voice in my head that sees a big angry Chechen with a beard running through everybody in the division? We all have that voice.”
“You just sack the f— up and be the man you want to be.”
As for what comes next, Sean Strickland appears open to defending the middleweight title against top-ranked contender Nassourdine Imavov, while Chimaev is reportedly considering a move up to light heavyweight.
“At the end of the day, I heard he might want to move up to 205, and he should,” Strickland said. “If that weight cut is killing you, go to 205 and enjoy life.”
