{"id":732670,"date":"2026-06-12T21:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T21:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/732670\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T21:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T21:46:08","slug":"khamzat-chimaev-vows-to-take-his-head-off-in-strickland-rematch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/732670\/","title":{"rendered":"Khamzat Chimaev vows to &#8216;take his head off&#8217; in Strickland rematch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnews.com\/fighter\/khamzat-chimaev\/\" class=\"internal-link text-bone underline decoration-ash\/30 hover:decoration-gold underline-offset-2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Khamzat Chimaev<\/a> wants another crack at Sean Strickland and plans to stay at <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnews.com\/division\/middleweight\/\" class=\"internal-link text-bone underline decoration-ash\/30 hover:decoration-gold underline-offset-2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">middleweight<\/a> to get it.<\/p>\n<p>The former UFC champion, who dropped a split decision to Strickland at UFC 328 in May, told reporters at Friday&#8217;s RAF 10 press conference that he&#8217;s not moving up to <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnews.com\/division\/light-&lt;a href=\" http:=\"\" class=\"internal-link text-bone underline decoration-ash\/30 hover:decoration-gold underline-offset-2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">heavyweight<\/a>\/&#8221; class=&#8221;internal-link text-bone underline decoration-ash\/30 hover:decoration-gold underline-offset-2&#8243;&gt;light heavyweight despite speculation about the weight cut. According to MMA Fighting, Chimaev said he&#8217;s waiting on UFC executives Dana White and Hunter Campbell to finalize the rematch.<\/p>\n<p>Chimaev blames judges, promises finish<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Of course, I&#8217;m going to go rematch [Sean Strickland],&#8221; Chimaev said, per MMA Fighting. &#8220;I don&#8217;t lose the fight, I lost for the judges. Next time, I&#8217;m going to go take his head off.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Chimaev reportedly struggled with conditioning at UFC 328 in Newark after a brutal weight cut, and Strickland controlled much of the fight on the feet to reclaim the <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnews.com\/division\/middleweight\/\" class=\"internal-link text-bone underline decoration-ash\/30 hover:decoration-gold underline-offset-2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">middleweight<\/a> title. The buildup featured enough bad blood that the UFC kept the fighters in separate locations before fight week.<\/p>\n<p>Strickland later said his trash talk was meant to sell the fight. Chimaev said he&#8217;s tried to get Strickland back in the gym but the champion has cited a shoulder issue.<\/p>\n<p>Before the rematch materializes, Chimaev makes his wrestling debut Saturday at RAF 10 against Dillon Danis. He called the match a money fight while he waits for the UFC to book Strickland again.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sources-heading\">Reported via:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Khamzat Chimaev wants another crack at Sean Strickland and plans to stay at middleweight to get it. The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":732671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":["post-732670","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\/732670","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=732670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/732671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=732670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=732670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=732670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}