increased to an arguably disturbing degree in recent weeks<\/a>. Speaking to the media ahead of UFC 328, Strickland said he\u2019d be willing to use his firearm on Chimaev or any of the champ\u2019s team members if he is approached in a threatening manner. The beef has stemmed from the pair\u2019s brief training history at Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas, which eventually turned Strickland sour. He\u2019s since made remarks slandering Chimaev\u2019s identity, religion and personal affiliations.<\/p>\nAs one of history\u2019s all-time greatest trash-talkers, Sonnen occasionally crossed a line or two in his heyday, but compared to Strickland, most would consider the Oregonian\u2019s banter harmless. To see things escalate in this manner has been concerning, said Sonnen.<\/p>\n
“Can these guys really not be around each other to do fight-style activities like face off? \u201c Sonnen said. \u201cAre they really carrying weapons, and the security that’s provided not enough? I don’t know. I felt like the \u2018I\u2019m going to shoot you\u2019 comment took some of the fun out of it. I wish that phrase wasn\u2019t used.<\/p>\n
“By the way, I don\u2019t know that he was kidding. He is somebody who practices his Second Amendment rights. He does have a concealed carry. He is trained with a weapon. I don\u2019t know that Sean was joking, but I also don\u2019t like the theme of that.<\/p>\n
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“I’m pleading with Sean Strickland now \u2014 if Chimaev or Chimaev’s friends approach you, Sean, please, don’t shoot them.”<\/p>\n
Throughout Sonnen\u2019s own career, he made enemies aplenty \u2014 most notably in Brazil.<\/p>\n
His infamous rivalry with UFC legend Anderson Silva stands out most as one of the all-time best, thanks to Sonnen\u2019s promotional antics. But as heated as things became between the pair, they never came to blows outside of their fights \u2014 unlike Sonnen and Wanderlei Silva. Sonnen reflected on how, after their brawl during \u201cThe Ultimate Fighter: Brazil,\u201d Sonnen\u2019s security guard threatened to shoot Silva if something happened again. Sonnen demanded that his security not shoot Silva, no matter how far things escalated.<\/p>\n
In the end, Sonnen had the last laugh when he won their eventual 2017 fight in Bellator by unanimous decision, with a game plan typical of an \u201cAmerican Gangster\u201d performance: take down, smother and dominate.<\/p>\n
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For Chimaev vs. Strickland, Sonnen expects to see the same approach as usual from the champ. But taking down Strickland will be more difficult than Chimaev\u2019s past 15 opponents, believes Sonnen.<\/p>\n
![\"CHICAGO,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/67b2f800-7b8e-11f0-85bf-cbc9e67383f9.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Khamzat Chimaev makes the first defense of his UFC belt this Saturday against Sean Strickland.<\/p>\n
(Geoff Stellfox via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s a misconception on Chimaev, which is that he gets tired in fights,\u201d Sonnen said. \u201cIf I’m an athlete and I don’t get tired in a fight, I failed everybody. I failed the ticket-buyer. My own coach would be furious if he saw me in a fight and I didn’t get exhausted. Why would I be saving energy? Whether it was one or 100 rounds, I better use all the energy that I have, and we’ve seen Chimaev do that. We saw Chimaev go out there with guys like Kamaru Usman, Gilbert Burns, meet with everything that he had. And when the fight was over, he had no more energy. That’s what he should have done. That’s what his job is to do, and the opponent should have done the same.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I will not concede to the idea that Chimaev can’t go championship rounds. When a guy gets tired, if he wilts, that’s one thing. But if a guy gets tired and he pushes on through the exhaustion, that’s what makes champions.<\/p>\n
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“With Strickland, how are you going to beat him?\u201d Sonnen continued. \u201cYou\u2019re not going to take him down, and if you do, you\u2019re not going to keep him there. If you do and you keep him there, every five minutes, they’re going to blow a whistle and make you reset. And I don\u2019t think that Strickland can get tackled for 25 minutes and held there. So can Chimaev beat Strickland? Yeah, sure. But he\u2019s going to have to find a way to do it, and it\u2019s not going to be what he did with Dricus [du Plessis]. It\u2019s not going to be dominant ground-and-pound.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Khamzat Chimaev, an elite-level wrestler, is back atop the UFC middleweight division. Having attempted to reach a similar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":648087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,31771,641,5899,638,35696,82,640,79972],"class_list":["post-648086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chael-sonnen","tag-fighting","tag-khamzat-chimaev","tag-mma","tag-sean-strickland","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-wanderlei-silva"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648086","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=648086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}