Khamzat Chimaev will defend his middleweight title against Sean Strickland in the UFC 328 main event on May 9 in Newark, N.J., and the promotion is already treating the buildup like a security problem. Dana White said UFC plans to keep the two men far apart until it is time to make the walk to the cage.
Chimaev, who won the belt with a five-round decision over Dricus du Plessis at UFC 319 in August, was asked whether security might need to pull him off Strickland before fight night. His answer was blunt: “I don’t want to kill a man.” He added that a street encounter would be different from a cage fight, saying, “Out on the street, that’s different—if he dies, he dies. But in the cage, it’s sport.”
That kind of language fits a fighter who has turned every major step of his UFC run into a statement. Before the title win, Chimaev finished his first four UFC opponents, including a 17-second knockout of Gerald Meerschart and first-round finishes over Li Jingliang and Rhys McKee. His first UFC fight to go the distance was a three-rounder against Gilbert Burns, and both men earned Fight of the Night awards for it.
The matchup now gives Chimaev his first middleweight title defense, and he is not pretending to have the outcome mapped out. Asked how he expected to win, he said, “Honestly, I don’t think about that at all,” before adding, “I’m just training for now.” He also said, “Whatever happens, happens,” and “I always picture victory, but only the Almighty knows how it will happen.” His final word on the question was, “By any means.”
The rivalry has already produced enough heat that White is trying to manage the two camps before they even reach the cage. Chimaev, speaking in a vlog uploaded by Adam Zubayraev, said, “I want to fight” if he crosses paths with Strickland before fight night, then added, “We still have to fight anyway.”
That leaves May 9 less as a standard title defense than as the latest test of whether Chimaev can back up the force of his reputation against a fighter who has never made a quiet week out of anything. He has the belt now. Strickland gets the first shot at taking it away.
