It’s no secret that Khamzat Chimaev and Sean Strickland have been on a collision course for some time now. The two have not come face to face but have been competing for the top spot at 185 lbs. Strickland has also been taking a lot of jobs at Khamzat, calling him a ‘wh*re’ for his life choices. And while Khamzat is yet to respond to the American fighter, MMA veteran Tam Khan wants him to, inside an octagon and put an end to this one-sided feud once and for all.
The former MMA fighter turned entrepreneur has claimed that if Khamzat and Strickland ever face off, it’ll be an absolute bloodbath for the American. Khan even went as far as to suggest that Chimaev would deliver a beatdown even worse than what Khabib Nurmagomedov did to Conor McGregor back at UFC 229. Ouch!
“Dricus beats Strickland. BUT I want Strickland to win only because I can’t wait for @KChimaev to crush him & ruin his life. He will do what Khabib did to Conor but worse. All that shit talking will catch up on you, redneck.”
Dricus beats Strickland. BUT I want Strickland to win only because I can’t wait for @KChimaev to crush him & ruin his life. He will do what Khabib did to Conor but worse. All that shit talking will catch up on you redneck.
— Tam Khan (@Tam_Khan) February 5, 2025
Strickland’s brash attitude, blunt opinions, and trash-talking have made him a love-him-or-hate-him fighter. So, it’s not too surprising that Khan feels a certain way about him. Regardless, if this fight does get made at some point, it could very well be a one-sided matchup, as Khan predicts.
And there’s a good reason to assume that. Chimaev has been one of the most dominant athletes in the UFC since his debut. To this into perspective, every one of his opponents has known his game plan long before they made it to the octagon. The octagon gates lock in, the referee asks both fighters to shake hands, the bell rings, a clap follows and Chimaev rushes in to shoot for a takedown.
That’s what happens every single time. But nobody has been able to counter it yet. Sure, Gilbert Burns and Kamaru Usman pushed him to the brink but Strickland doesn’t quite have the skills.
Burns is an exceptional striker while Usman could wrestle just about anyone on the roster. Chimaev’s striking, while effective at times, isn’t aggressive enough to keep Chimaev at bay. And given that just days ago he was asking Du Plessis to not grapple with him, Strickland winning the fight on the ground is a hard sell to be generous.
That said, the buildup to the matchup is definitely going to be insane, wild, and full of drama, especially since Strickland and Chimaev go back a long way.
Strickland and Chimaev’s colorful history
Interestingly, Chimaev and Strickland have been teammates before. In fact, there is a rather viral video of Strickland telling Chimaev to calm down and take it easy during sparring with his teammates. The irony!
But it’s not the only story from their days of training together. Strickland had earlier allegedly claimed that he had bested Chimaev in a sparring session, which the Emirati superstar vehemently disagreed with. Chimaev claimed that Strickland was getting beaten up by him so much that his coach was asked to step in.
Khamzat Chimaev goes OFF on Sean Strickland.
1) Says he was beating Strickland up in the gym everyday, to the point where he asked his coach to tell Khamzat go easy on him
2) Says that Sean Strickland’s “macho man” act of hating gays and being manly is all fake
@espnmma pic.twitter.com/1oCtFhw0S9
— Championship Rounds (@ChampRDS) January 23, 2024
The two haven’t liked each other since but had stopped their public feuding as their respective careers progressed in different directions. But now that they are again on the verge of a collision, Strickland seems to have gone a little below the belt.
At UFC 312 media day, he was asked about Chimaev, and what followed was a fiery rant. Strickland fired off insults at Chimaev’s change in nationality and his relationship with Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadyrov. Calling him a ‘wh*re’, Strickland said,
“Chimaev fled Chechnya with his family because of an oppressive, warlord dictator that killed people indiscriminately. No hate on him, it’s your country. He goes back to Chechnya, and he goes back to Chechnya because somebody wants to buy him a G-Wagon and he’s like, ‘Oh yeah! I’ll be that w—-. I’ll f—— do it, I’ll bend the knee for you man. I like f—— G-Wagons!”
Sean Strickland just went OFF on Khamzat Chimaev at media day
“You fled a country, you went back and you got buddy buddy with a dictator, and you fled again…
You are and always will be a f***ing wh*re.”
@TheMacLife pic.twitter.com/u9gQhajgz6
— Championship Rounds (@ChampRDS) February 5, 2025
Strickland also dug into Chimaev over the scandal surrounding the $mash token, a cryptocurrency that the Emirati fighter had been associated with. This crypto venture ended in a lot of fans losing their hard-earned cash, and Strickland couldn’t let that slide.
Chimaev has yet to respond to this new statement. But needless to say, he’s not going to be too pleased with it. It’s not like Strickland cares about Chimaev’s feelings but what he’s done here is plant the seed for a feud that could potentially rival McGregor vs Khabib.
