Sean Strickland and Khamzat Chimaev have both said they are ready for combat at UFC 328\u2014in or out of the octagon\u2014and Strickland\u2019s head coach Eric Nicksick hopes sanity will prevail before the cage door locks.<\/p>\n
Chimaev puts the middleweight title on the line against Strickland in Saturday\u2019s headliner in Newark, N.J. Throughout the build, things have gone from who beat who in sparring,<\/a> to UFC CEO Dana White saying the two fighters won\u2019t be allowed in the same hotel before the fight,<\/a> to both fighters saying they will be ready to scrap, and possibly do worse, if things get heated during fight week.<\/p>\n Nicksick was asked about the potential of a possible pre-fight brawl, and if he believes it could actually happen.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, they\u2019re not gonna make any money doing it that way,\u201d Nicksick told MMA Fighting. \u201cIt\u2019s like, you guys have a fight for money, you both are prizefighters, go make your money. I hope it\u2019s quite the latter. I hope that, they fight, but may the best man win, and maybe eventually we can all get back to training with each other once again. So that\u2019s my look at it.\u201d<\/p>\n Strickland earned his shot with a sensational performance and finish against Anthony Hernandez in the main event of UFC Houston in February. He looks to become a two-time champion in the matchup.<\/p>\n Nicksick was asked if there was a bit more fire to Strickland in preparation for the fight with things being so heated in the build between the two fighters.<\/p>\n \u201cNot really,\u201d Nicksick said. \u201cI think business as usual. There\u2019s probably a little bit more heat behind it because of the bulletin board talking and everything else. But, for the most part, I think it\u2019s business as usual for Sean in this fight.\u201d<\/p>\n Chimaev captured his first title with a lopsided decision win over Dricus du Plessis at UFC 319 this past August. \u201cBorz\u201d is undefeated inside the octagon, with impressive performances at both middleweight and welterweight.<\/p>\n Nicksick says his dealings with Chimaev over the years have been great, and they\u2019ve even talked since the fight was booked with both men going out of their way to send good blessings the other way. However, the two are on opposite sides of the cage Saturday night.<\/p>\n \u201cMy experiences with him have only been wonderful, to be honest with you,\u201d Nicksick said. \u201cHe\u2019s very giving with his knowledge, especially when he was in the room. There\u2019s a lot of things that we try to pick up on that he was doing that I think has helped our game a ton. Ironically, Francis [Ngannou] is using some of that stuff today in practice, So my experiences with him have always been great.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we\u2019ve always maintained a friendly relationship and unfortunately, this is a fight we have to compete against each other, but other than that, it\u2019s all respect on my end and we have a job to do. I\u2019m not the one going in there to fight, man. I just got to go in there and execute a game plan.\u201d<\/p>\n Nicksick said the good thing about the title fight being booked so soon after Strickland\u2019s win is that his fighter remained in great shape, and Strickland didn\u2019t have the time to \u201cballoon\u201d up. Additionally, there were some similarities to the game plan coming off of the Hernandez fight, especially with the insane pace and grappling prowess \u201cFluffy\u201d typically brings to the table.<\/p>\n While some things are similar, Nicksick sees a glaring difference in Chimaev\u2019s game compared to Hernandez.<\/p>\n \u201cI think Khamzat\u2019s a much different striker, stylistically, than Fluffy,\u201d Nicksick said. \u201cKhamzat uses stance switches a lot in motion. He\u2019ll drift to southpaw. He has a real good head inside double out of south. He has a really good kicking game. There\u2019s a lot of other things offensively that I think Khamzat does differently and maybe a little bit better that we have to incorporate into this camp.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I think that\u2019s why it\u2019s nice having Johnny Eblen in because Johnny\u2019s well versed in all aspects of MMA and a world-class wrestler in his own right. So that\u2019s kind of why we brought him into camp and I thought he would be a great addition to help us.\u201d<\/p>\n While Xtreme Couture has had some big moments, and multiple world champions being crowned, Nicksick was asked what a Strickland upset win would do for him, his fighter, and the rest of the competitors and athletes in the gym, especially with Strickland being one of the main leaders in the room.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019d be huge, especially it being Khamzat and knowing that this is an undefeated fighter that really no one\u2019s had, in my opinion, a chance to try and beat him,\u201d Nicksick said. \u201cSo for us to be able to go out there and beat a guy with his stature, I think he\u2019s top three, top four in the world right now, it\u2019d be huge for everybody, man, especially for Sean.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know that our guy has the capabilities and the attributes to be able to go out there and do that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sean Strickland and Khamzat Chimaev have both said they are ready for combat at UFC 328\u2014in or out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":["post-656012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656012","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=656012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}