Sean Strickland is set to challenge Khamzat Chimaev for the UFC Middleweight Championship, and Jorge Masvidal thinks there will be a new titleholder.<\/p>\n
Chimaev vs. Strickland is scheduled to headline<\/a> UFC 328 in Newark on May 9. The title fight was booked after Strickland turned in a stellar performance in his second-round TKO finish over Anthony Hernandez. While Nassourdine Imavov had been thought of to be a prime candidate for a title shot, Strickland\u2019s showing at UFC Houston and popularity earned him the fight.<\/p>\n Over at Death Row MMA<\/a>, Masvidal explained why he believes Strickland will become a two-time middleweight champion at the conclusion of UFC 328 (h\/t MMAJunkie<\/a>).<\/p>\n \u201cI know he went up to 185 and did some big things, but I don\u2019t think he beats Strickland,\u201d Masvidal said. \u201cI\u2019m dumping the house on Strickland. I don\u2019t even think Chimaev fights him because they\u2019ve trained a lot. He\u2019s just a bad style for him.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve seen Sean go with good wrestlers over at American Top Team \u2013 guys who have wrestled their whole life, All-Americans, national champions. Dude, this guy can wrestle defensively. He never uses his wrestling in a fight, but if you try to wrestle with him, you quickly realize this guy can wrestle back, and that costs a lot of energy, and Chimaev doesn\u2019t have the best gas tank.\u201d<\/p>\n Masvidal also noted that he hasn\u2019t been impressed by Chimaev outside of the one-sided grappling clinic against Dricus du Plessis back in Aug. 2025. \u201cGamebred\u201d shared his belief that Kamaru Usman should\u2019ve had his hand raised when he fought \u201cBorz\u201d back in Oct. 2023.<\/p>\n Also set for the UFC 328 card will be a welterweight clash between Sean Brady and Joaquin Buckley. Light heavyweights Jan Blachowicz and Bogdan Guskov are also scheduled to clash inside the Prudential Center. Heavyweights Alexander Volkov and Waldo Cortes Acosta will do battle as well.<\/p>\n What chances are you giving Sean Strickland of dethroning Khamzat Chimaev? Share your thoughts in the comments below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sean Strickland is set to challenge Khamzat Chimaev for the UFC Middleweight Championship, and Jorge Masvidal thinks there…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":["post-538386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}