Former UFC champion Sean Strickland believes he’s the man to beat Khamzat Chimaev, and he plans on working his way back into the middleweight title picture to prove it.
Khamzat Chimaev seized the 185 pound strap from Dricus du Plessis, blanking the South African champ on the scorecards and even earning a 10-8 with his relentless grappling offense. Du Plessis was the man who took the belt off Strickland in 2024, but “Tarzan” isn’t worried about what the MMA math implies.
“I’m probably the only one in the UFC that can out grapple that little wh*re for 5 rounds,” Strickland wrote on X (formerly Twitter) after Chimaev’s win. “Well looks like I gotta stack some Ws to fight that little b*tch lmao.”
Chimaev just laughed when he heard about Strickland’s comments. The two had previously trained together at XTreme Couture, and both claimed they dominated the other.
“Bro, I take him down many times, how can he take me down?” Khamzat said at the UFC 319 post-fight press conference. “Come on, this guy. I beat him everywhere and striking. This guy just talk too much. So he’s a funny guy. He’s working with that.”
Strickland has been training with another one of Chimaev’s rivals in Paulo Costa, and “Borz” had an interesting suggestion on how they could resolve things.
“He’s training with ‘Buratino’ or whatever it is. Yeah, Paulo. I [beat] them together.”
For now, Chimaev has a lot of potential opponents for his first title defense. There’s the winner of UFC Paris’ Caio Borralho vs. Nassourdine Imavov fight. There’s Reinier de Ridder. There’s even Anthony “Fluffy” Hernandez. As for Strickland, he’s suspended indefinitely for getting in the cage at a local event and punching a fighter. That’s not exactly striking distance from the title, is it?