{"id":665590,"date":"2026-05-13T00:59:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T00:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/665590\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T00:59:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T00:59:08","slug":"sean-strickland-returns-to-xtreme-couture-with-ufc-gold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/665590\/","title":{"rendered":"Sean Strickland returns to Xtreme Couture with UFC gold"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sean Strickland returned to Las Vegas this week carrying UFC gold after reclaiming the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Middleweight title at UFC 328<\/a> last weekend (Sat., May 9, 2026), defeating Khamzat Chimaev via razor-close split decision inside Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey (official scorecards here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

And after briefly celebrating in \u201cThe Garden State,\u201d Strickland made sure to bring the belt straight back to the gym that helped build him: Xtreme Couture<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Check out the moment below:<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter every L I got, I went back and came to the gym, and that is why I got another one of these [titles],\u201d Strickland told teammates during the gym celebration. \u201cThat being said, as always, I want to thank you guys. I\u2019m pretty f\u2014ked up so I\u2019m going to take a few weeks off.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I wouldn\u2019t be here without you guys, seriously \u2014 Ed, Brad, all the coaches,\u201d Strickland continued. \u201cI would not have won this without you guys. So this isn\u2019t just my belt, it\u2019s our belt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Head coach Eric Nicksick echoed the same sentiment while addressing the room.<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you guys for all the help and hard work,\u201d Nicksick said. \u201cLike Sean said, it takes a village and we\u2019re not here without you guys. I hope you guys understand that this is a very important ecosystem \u2014 and without the guys within this room we wouldn\u2019t have the ability to continue to grow. That belt belongs to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several UFC fighters in attendance \u2014 including Edmen Shahbazyan, Kai Kamaka, and Brad Tavares \u2014 also congratulated the newly crowned champion.<\/p>\n

Strickland (31-7) is now riding a two-fight win streak since losing his rematch against Dricus du Plessis, snapping Anthony Hernandez\u2019s lengthy unbeaten run and becoming the first fighter to hand Chimaev a professional loss.<\/p>\n

For complete UFC 328 results, coverage and highlights click HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sean Strickland returned to Las Vegas this week carrying UFC gold after reclaiming the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":665591,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,33601,638,82,208767,139445,702,7788,3194],"class_list":["post-665590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-328","tag-ufc-on-paramount","tag-ufc-news","tag-ufc-results","tag-videos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665590","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=665590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}