Sean Strickland has suggested that his bitter feud with Khamzat Chimaev represented an attempt to sell their fight, with the admission coming after the American beat the Russian on Saturday.
Strickland pulled off a major upset in the main event of UFC 328, outpointing Chimaev to become a two-time middleweight champion – two-and-a-half years after he dethroned Israel Adesanya in another shocking result.
Strickland, 35, and Chimaev, 32, had traded numerous insults in the build-up to their bout, including vulgar attacks at Thursday’s press conference, which ended with the Russian kicking his former training partner.
Yet they touched gloves numerous times during their fight in Newark, New Jersey, and embraced one another after the contest.
“I sell fights,” Strickland explained at his post-fight press conference. “Look at the UFC, how f***ing boring it is. Really, the UFC is so f***ing boring.
“Do you even know half the [roster]? Other than Alex [Pereira], and he doesn’t even talk. He’s just big and scary. That guy just knocks everybody out. But other than Alex, it’s f***ing boring.”
Elaborating on his in- and post-fight interactions with Chimaev, Strickland continued: “There is something [where], unless you’ve experienced it, you just don’t know what it’s like. When you go and fight another man, your soul is just exposed.
“When you’re f***ing bleeding, and he’s bleeding. I want to quit, he wants to quit, we don’t want to be there. You just have this level of respect for one another.
“It transcends race, religion, nationality, country. It’s something that you just don’t know. You kind of become someone’s brother after you and him try to die, win or lose.”
Strickland also reflected on his visible anger at the press conference, after he was kicked by Chimaev, saying: “At that moment, the guy kicked me in the balls! What the f***! I don’t like to be threatened.
“And maybe it’s just who he is as a person, but when he was in the gym, he was really threatening. He had that threatening demeanour. And maybe it’s that little man inside of me, but when you threaten me, I want to […] kill you.
“And maybe he didn’t take it that way. Maybe it’s just his Chechen sense of humour, but always in the gym, he was trying to punk me – where I was like, ‘Let’s go spar,’ and we would never spar.
“I could have manufactured the whole situation in my head, to be honest. There’s times when you’re mentally not well, you’ll have interactions with people, and sometimes your brain thinks something else happened. […] So, there’s a chance that I just hallucinated that entire interaction with Chimaev.”
Chimaev’s split-decision loss to Strickland (48-47, 47-48, 47-48) marked his first defeat, as his title reign ended with zero successful defences. The “Wolf” became champion by dominating and outpointing Dricus Du Plessis in August, after “DDP” twice beat Strickland via decision to win and retain the belt.
Du Plessis was cageside on Saturday and hinted that he is keen on a third clash with Strickland, although Nassourdine Imavov is seen by many fans and pundits as the rightful next title challenger.
“I truly believe in UFC rankings,” Strickland said. “I think they f***ing matter, and I hate when guys jump them. So, if that’s what the UFC wants, that’s the rankings. That’s who it is, let’s go!”
In fact, Imavov is ranked at No 2, with Du Plessis at No 1. In any case, a rematch with Chimaev does not appear to be next for Strickland.
UFC president Dana White said on Saturday: “[Chimaev] literally walked up to me after the fight and said, ‘I want to move up. I don’t want to fight in this weight class anymore.’”
Strickland reacted to this by saying: “I heard he said he might want to move up to 205[lb], and he should. If that weight cut is killing you, go to 205, enjoy life. It’s way easier competition.”
