{"id":669438,"date":"2026-05-14T01:55:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T01:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/669438\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T01:55:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T01:55:10","slug":"khamzat-chimaev-losing-at-ufc-328-doesnt-make-sense-per-ex-ufc-champ-teammate-maybe-they-just-wanted-sean-strickland-to-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/669438\/","title":{"rendered":"Khamzat Chimaev losing at UFC 328 “doesn’t make sense”, per ex-UFC champ teammate: “Maybe they just wanted Sean [Strickland] to win”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Khamzat Chimaev losing at UFC 328 to Sean Strickland has virtually everyone in the MMA world talking, including someone within the lineage of UFC middleweight champions throughout history. That referenced fighter is Luke Rockhold<\/a>, who discussed this recent 185 pound title clash on the JAXXON Podcast.<\/p>\n

The former Strikeforce and UFC titleholder has well documented training interactions with \u2018Borz\u2019 in recent times and clearly has a certain rapport with Chimaev. Conversely, Rockhold and Strickland have their own history in a far more adversarial way. The two were booked to compete at UFC 268 before a herniated disc sustained in Rockhold\u2019s back caused a withdrawal from the planned Strickland contest in November 2021.<\/p>\n

Touching upon his thoughts regarding the headlining bout from the latest numbered event from Ultimate Fighting Championship, Rockhold said [via MMA Junkie<\/a>],<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe that\u2019s why he won, because of the +400 or 500 odds. I think Khamzat [Chimaev] won. Khamzat won the fourth and fifth round. He controlled the pace of how that fight finished, and that\u2019s what champions do, and that\u2019s who deserves the championship.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA jab is meant to change the course of what direction the fight is going. Every jab he [Sean Strickland] had was moving backwards. You\u2019ve got to do damage and step him back. \u2026 The only round that was clear for Sean is Round 2. Round 3 was close, could have gone either way. Round 4 was Khamzat all the way. He really pushed the pace; he hit him with some bigger shots. Sean was landing clean jabs, but they\u2019re usually off breaks and pepper jabs. It was setting up.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Luke Rockhold saw \u201csketchy things\u201d in Khamzat Chimaev vs. Sean Strickland UFC 328 scorecards<\/p>\n

As he further expounded upon his thoughts relating to the Khamzat Chimaev and Sean Strickland<\/a> 185-pound title fight from May 9th, Rockhold continued [via MMA Junkie],<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were setups, and they were defensive. Then the fifth round, he [Chimaev] pushed him on the back foot, too. He could have won [Rounds] 1, 3, 4, and 5. The only clear round for Sean was Round 2. Khamzat landed the bigger shots. It doesn\u2019t make sense. The only thing that makes sense is that he was a +500 underdog. There\u2019s a little bit of sketchy things sometimes in who they want to win. Maybe they just wanted Sean to win because he\u2019s Sean. It could have been swayed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Khamzat Chimaev losing at UFC 328 to Sean Strickland has virtually everyone in the MMA world talking, including…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":669439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,4120,11081,785,43022,85,787,266293],"class_list":["post-669438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-khamzat-chimaev","tag-luke-rockhold","tag-mma","tag-sean-strickland","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-328"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669438","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=669438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}