“Choking Him and Beating Him Up”: Khamzat Chimaev Details Sparring With Sean Strickland, Eyes UFC Fight

Khamzat Chimaev had to set the record straight against Sean Strickland. As he often does to untrained marines who make the mistake of training with him, Strickland claimed that he had beaten up the Chechen fighter during sparring. Unfortunately for the former middleweight champion, Chimaev has set the record straight.

In a recent interview uploaded by Red Corner MMA on X, the Russian fighter spoke about the ‘reality’ of what happened when he sparred with Strickland,

“There were a lot of guys around who saw me choking him and beating him up…We also have some unfinished business. It would be good to see who’s better inside the octagon.”

 

Sean Strickland @SStricklandMMA says he got the better of Khamzat when they trained together.

Khamzat @KChimaev says quite the opposite. Who do you believe? pic.twitter.com/7IO8U0cFSP

— Red Corner MMA (@RedCorner_MMA) July 18, 2024

According to Chimaev, not only did he end up beating Strickland, but he had someone film the whole ordeal on camera. Strickland is known or his hours and hours of sparring and aggressively so, especially when he is faced with lesser opponents. He often ends up beating them up and hurting them.

Chimaev is no different in his regard. However, Chimaev is also a generational talent and an exceptionally good fighter. Strickland, on the other hand, is seen dropping the Marlboro man act when he was sparring with UFC lightweight champion Alex ‘Poatan’ Pereira.

That said, unless one of these two men releases a video, nobody knows what they can trust.

Speaking of trust, Chimaev has also explained his reasons for pulling out of the Robert Whittaker fight in Saudi Arabia for UFC 303.

Immunity is Chimaev’s biggest fight till date.

In a recent interview uploaded by Red Corner MMA, he revealed that his immunity had taken a swan dive and he wanted was to rest but even that wasn’t nearly good enough.

“I ended up in the hospital and, to be honest, had severe headaches.”

 

Khamzat Chimaev talks his withdrawal from the Robert Whittaker fight:

“My immunity had dropped very much and we wanted to rest a little bit, for a week. I rested and I did not come to my senses.

I ended up in the hospital and, to be honest, had severe headaches.”

Aslanbek… pic.twitter.com/Iy1X4zSp25

— Championship Rounds (@ChampRDS) July 18, 2024

Well, Chimaev claims that the reason for his sudden illness was stress. He also claims that he had to make the trip to the hospital twice after the condition relapsed.

Doctors advised him to rest for three weeks and not fight. However, when he learned the news he could not immediately reveal it to the fans.

Hopefully he can show up for his next fight without being overweight or ill or make Dana White compromise on the state of things because whatever hopes the UFC President had for making money fights with him seem to be fading way with each passing day.