{"id":660838,"date":"2026-05-10T20:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T20:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/660838\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T20:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T20:25:09","slug":"sean-strickland-admits-he-had-doubts-heading-into-ufc-328-title-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/660838\/","title":{"rendered":"Sean Strickland admits he had doubts heading into UFC 328 title fight"},"content":{"rendered":"

UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland has admitted that he had doubts heading into the UFC 328 title fight last night.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Sean Strickland defeated<\/a> Khamzat Chimaev to become a two-time UFC middleweight champion. It was a pretty huge upset in the eyes of many fans, and while Sean himself may not care too much about the actual belt, it\u2019s an incredible accomplishment for someone who has often been overlooked by the mixed martial arts community.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Sean Strickland calls UFC \u201cboring\u201d when discussing why he sold his fight with Khamzat Chimaev so hard<\/a><\/p>\n

Of course, Strickland was not expected to win the contest by many, with Chimaev being the favorite given his dominant style and unbeaten record. In the end, though, the American was able to grit it out and overcome the odds.<\/p>\n

In a podcast appearance after the fight, Strickland had the following to say about how he felt leading up to UFC 328.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Strickland admits doubts ahead of UFC 328<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me tell you, every fight I\u2019ve ever had, 30-40 minutes before the fight I think I\u2019m gonna lose, every fight. I just go in there and fight. Yeah, (I\u2019m being serious), I\u2019ve never thought I was gonna win a fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve just got to be the man you wanna be, just because you think, like, how do you prove you\u2019re enough? You do it. I\u2019ve never thought I would ever win a fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all kind of have this voice in our head like, you don\u2019t think there\u2019s a voice in my head that sees a big angry Chechen with a beard, you see him just run through everybody in the division. You don\u2019t think I have a voice in my head saying, \u2018oh s\u2014, oh s\u2014\u2018, we all have that voice.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just sack the f\u2014 up and be the man you want to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quotes via Bloody Elbow<\/a><\/p>\n

Do you want to see a rematch? Let us know your thoughts on this in the comments below, BJPENN Nation!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland has admitted that he had doubts heading into the UFC 328 title fight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":660839,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82],"class_list":["post-660838","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\/660838","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=660838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}