{"id":556378,"date":"2026-03-24T00:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T00:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/556378\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T00:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T00:42:09","slug":"belal-muhammad-sean-strickland-talked-way-into-khamzat-chimaev-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/556378\/","title":{"rendered":"Belal Muhammad: Sean Strickland talked way into Khamzat Chimaev fight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Belal Muhammad<\/a> hopes Khamzat Chimaev<\/a> makes Sean Strickland<\/a> pay for his words.<\/p>\n

Strickland (30-7 MMA, 17-7 UFC) needed just one win over Anthony Hernandez<\/a> to get a shot at middleweight champion Chimaev (15-0 MMA, 9-0 UFC) in the UFC 328 main event May 9 in Newark, N.J. (Paramount+<\/a>).<\/p>\n

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The former UFC welterweight champion thinks Nassourdine Imavov<\/a>, who’s on a five-fight winning streak, was snubbed out of a title shot.<\/p>\n

“Sucks for Imavov,” Muhammad said on his YouTube channel<\/a>. “You’ve got to feel for him. I thought he earned the title shot. I thought that he was going to get the title shot, but I think the trash talk, and the stupidity, and the era we live in now, where Strickland talks his way into a title shot. You know it’s going to get people to want to talk, people to want to view, especially with Chimaev. You know they’re going to go back and forth.”<\/p>\n

Muhammad has had his fair share of words with Strickland in the past, and wants nothing more than to see Chimaev dominate him.<\/p>\n

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“The thing I’m excited for is to see Chimaev smash him and walk through him,” Muhammad said. “I think that’s what it’s going to be. I think he’s going to be able to take him down, control him, and I’m hoping cut him open a little bit, let him bleed a little bit, and then break him mentally, and tap him out.”<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Belal Muhammad: Sean Strickland talked his way into UFC title shot<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Belal Muhammad hopes Khamzat Chimaev makes Sean Strickland pay for his words. Strickland (30-7 MMA, 17-7 UFC) needed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556379,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[18064,33311,49,48,641,5899,638,33274,35696,82,640],"class_list":["post-556378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-anthony-hernandez","tag-belal-muhammad","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-khamzat-chimaev","tag-mma","tag-nassourdine-imavov","tag-sean-strickland","tag-sports","tag-ufc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556378","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=556378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}