{"id":533166,"date":"2026-03-13T06:55:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T06:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/533166\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T06:55:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T06:55:09","slug":"khamzat-chimaev-to-defend-middleweight-title-vs-sean-strickland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/533166\/","title":{"rendered":"Khamzat Chimaev to defend middleweight title vs. Sean Strickland"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Andreas HaleMar 12, 2026, 10:45 PM ET<\/p>\n

Close<\/a>Andreas Hale is a combat sports reporter at ESPN. Andreas covers MMA, boxing and pro wrestling. In Andreas’ free time, he plays video games, obsesses over music and is a White Sox and 49ers fan. He is also a host for Sirius XM’s Fight Nation. Before joining ESPN, Andreas was a senior writer at DAZN and Sporting News. He started his career as a music journalist for outlets including HipHopDX, The Grammys and Jay-Z’s Life+Times. He is also an NAACP Image Award-nominated filmmaker as a producer for the animated short film “Bridges” in 2024.<\/p>\n

Multiple Authors<\/p>\n

Khamzat Chimaev<\/a> is set to make his first defense of the UFC middleweight title against former champion Sean Strickland<\/a> at UFC 328 at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, on May 9, the promotion announced Thursday.<\/p>\n

Chimaev (15-0) won the title with a lopsided unanimous decision over Dricus du Plessis<\/a> in August. He has waited patiently for his first assignment, and it will come in the form of a former middleweight champion.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Picks<\/a><\/p>\n

Strickland (30-7) vaulted into the title picture with an impressive stoppage win over Anthony “Fluffy” Hernandez last month. The UFC’s No. 3 ranked middleweight earned the nod over No. 2 ranked Nassourdine Imavov<\/a>, who lost to Strickland in 2023 but has won his past five fights.<\/p>\n

Strickland last held UFC gold when he stunned Israel Adesanya<\/a> with a unanimous decision win in 2023. He dropped the title to du Plessis in his first defense and lost the rematch in February 2025.<\/p>\n

Chimaev, of Chechnya, is ranked No. 4 on ESPN’s pound-for-pound list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andreas HaleMar 12, 2026, 10:45 PM ET CloseAndreas Hale is a combat sports reporter at ESPN. Andreas covers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533167,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82],"class_list":["post-533166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}