Sean Strickland and Khamzat Chimaev have already come to blows in their first press conference face-off.
CEO Dana White claimed that this weekend’s UFC 328 main event between Strickland and Chimaev is the most bitter grudge match since 2018. Back then, Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov had a fight so aggressive that they and their countrymen maintain a rivalry to this day.
Strickland has been particularly vocal in his disdain for Chimaev, as well as the Chechen people and Muslims more broadly. The champion has hit back and made his position clear, with the feud heating up in such a way that there have been threats of gun violence.
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Sean Strickland and Khamzat Chimaev finally meet at UFC 328 press conference
Saturday night’s main event between Sean Strickland and Khamzat Chimaev has proven to have a particularly nasty build-up. The middleweight duo have gone back-and-forth through the media for months, and finally got to meet this evening in Newark.
Tickets weren’t put out for the event, but hundreds of fans had to be turned away at the door of the RWJBarnabas Health Hockey House at Prudential Center. An anime convention next door in the main area made for quite the scene as both sets of attendees converged on Lafayette St.
In a rare move, the promotion opted just to feature the two title fights on stage. But flyweight champion Joshua Van and his soft-spoken Japanese rival Tatsuro Taira were little more than a sideshow to a vintage Strickland performance on the microphone.
Within seconds of arriving on stage in front of a raucous crowd, the pair had to be held apart by security as they rose from their chairs to trash talk. They were almost indecipherable in the room, but fans at home were treated to a political and x-rated series of rants from Strickland.
Chimaev held his own, with White telling Bloody Elbow that he was certain to face the pair off.
2026-05-07 22:29:30
