{"id":761203,"date":"2026-06-26T08:51:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T08:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/761203\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T08:51:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T08:51:08","slug":"sean-strickland-reveals-return-timeline-targets-third-fight-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/761203\/","title":{"rendered":"Sean Strickland reveals return timeline, targets third fight in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">It\u2019s been a little over a month since Sean Strickland shocked the world at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/ufc-328-live-stream-fight-card-start-time-how-to-watch\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">UFC 328<\/a>, dethroning Khamzat Chimaev in a competitive five-round battle <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/ufc-328-live-stream-fight-card-start-time-how-to-watch\/443106\/video-ufc-posts-pivotal-fifth-round-strickland-chimaev-title-fight-khamzat-demands-immediate-rematch\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">(highlights here)<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Unfortunately, the victory did not come without a cost. In the immediate aftermath, Strickland revealed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/ufc-news\/443568\/khamzat-rematch-put-on-hold-as-sean-strickland-reveals-extensive-damage-in-ufc-328-shoulder-injury\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a significant shoulder injury<\/a> on his right side, which perhaps explains why Strickland didn\u2019t throw many right hands in the latter half of the fight. Either way, the new Middleweight kingpin begins his second reign on the sidelines \u2026 but perhaps not for as long as initially thought?<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Per a social media post from \u201cTarzan,\u201d Strickland could be back in the cage before the end of the year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">In this modern era, it\u2019s somewhat common to see a champion only fight once each year with two title fights considered the norm. Strickland has already competed twice in 2026, defeating both Anthony Hernandez and Khamzat, so a December return would be an impressive and unusual third showing. That\u2019s a hectic schedule for a champion, particularly considering Strickland has been fighting since 2008 and has a known injury.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">There are a lot of options, but hopefully one materializes in December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been a little over a month since Sean Strickland shocked the world at UFC 328, dethroning Khamzat&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":761204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,40762,785,85,1396],"class_list":["post-761203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761203","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=761203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/761204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=761203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=761203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=761203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}