UFC 328 is just days away, and the promotion finds itself in an awkward position as it has two fighters with bad blood who have spoken frequently about shedding real blood.
When Khamzat Chimaev vs. Sean Strickland for the middleweight championship was announced, everyone knew the feud could get ugly, but could anyone have guessed it would devolve so quickly into death threats? And not “I’m going to hurt you in the octagon” threats, but “If I see you outside of the cage, one of us has got to go” threats.
Bluster or not, it’s hard to recall the last time we had a pair of headliners put Dana White and the UFC’s security team on edge like this.
Just how bad could Chimaev vs. Strickland get during fight week? MMA Fighting’s Alexander K. Lee, Damon Martin, and Jed Meshew try to predict if we haven’t even seen the worst of this beef yet and how it stacks up to past grudge matches, plus where Joshua Van or Tatsura Taira could stand at the end of the night, and more.
1. Where does Chimaev vs. Strickland rank among the UFC’s ugliest rivalries?
Lee: I should shrug these things off by now, but honestly, just based on all the talk of, like, actually murdering each other… pretty high!
From a pure fighting standpoint, I wouldn’t rank it higher than something like McGregor vs. Aldo because you can’t beat having two stars actually sharing the stage multiple times and directly messing with each other. Right now, all we have from Chimaev and Strickland is a lot of scraps from interviews and scrums, teasing another level of real-world violence that will never happen (I hope!).
But the fact that the UFC 328 headliners have veered into “I’m going to shoot you” territory is disturbing, to say the least. They’re not talking about winning a fight, or who is the better martial artist, or even who is more entertaining; they’ve gone straight to over-the-top threats of gunplay that you know at least one of them (looking at you, Mr. Strickland) has played out in his mind repeatedly.
There are plenty more substantial beefs than Chimaev vs. Strickland, but by definition, this one is pretty pointless, dumb, and yeah, ugly.
Martin: Weirdly, the discourse surrounding this fight hasn’t been as nasty as it could have been because Sean Strickland largely just drops repeated jabs at Chimaev’s heritage and, oftentimes, his close relationship with Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadyrov. But unlike, say, the buildup to Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Conor McGregor back in 2018, things haven’t turned as ugly when it comes to personal insults. McGregor crossed so many lines leading up to that fight that there’s still a good chance that if he were ever in the same room with Nurmagomedov and his team, a brawl is likely to break out.
Let’s also not forget when things got ultra-personal with Strickland and Dricus du Plessis ahead of their first fight. The insults from du Plessis about Strickland’s upbringing and family finally exploded when the always combustible Strickland literally dove over three rows of people to attack du Plessis at a UFC event.
That said, Strickland suddenly declaring that he’s bringing a gun to New Jersey and he’s ready to shoot to kill if he gets jumped certainly ratchets things up a bit. The animosity in this fight is largely built around a potential physical altercation, more so than anything either fighter is going to say before UFC 328. Chimaev much prefers to walk the walk than talk the talk — so the threat that he might just haul off and punch Strickland outside the cage is much more likely than he tries to lob verbal insults ahead of the fight.
Remember, Chimaev has engaged in more than a few backstage altercations — one that got so bad that the UFC actually cancelled an entire press conference! That’s the bigger threat here, so Dana White’s idea to keep Chimaev and Strickland as far apart as possible is probably a great idea. Is there a chance something crazy still happens? Absolutely, and that’s the nastiest part about this rivalry.
Meshew: This isn’t great punditry, but I think Damon nailed this one. In the scheme of nasty rivalries, this isn’t even as bad as Strickland’s beef with Dricus du Plessis as far as over-the-line things said. And it falls far short of Conor McGregor’s repeatedly bigoted comments about Khabib Nurmagomedov both before and after their fight. Not to mention the whole bus incident, which spilled over to affect a bunch of innocent other fighters, and in turn led to The Flight Of The Eagle (Khabib’s cage-jumping brawl).
For the time being, Strickland and Chimaev have done nothing more than chat a bit of shit at each other. And for all Strickland’s bravado about taking a life, this is the same man who promises “TO THE DEATH!” before every fight, only to jab and teep his opponent. What he says and what he does are not always aligned.
That being said, if this is the time that Strickland goes off the rails or Chimaev loses his cool, all of that can change. Here’s to hoping nothing truly tragic happens this week.
2. Will the UFC 328 co-main event winner be your undisputed No. 1 flyweight?
Meshew: Yes, but to paraphrase an old adage, it will the winner will be firmly in that position, but loosely held.
Joshua Van is currently my No. 1-ranked flyweight because he won the title fair and square. Now, was his win a bit fluky? Sure. But a win is a win, and especially since he did nothing wrong, he gets the credit. That’s how this game works.
Is Tatsuro Taira the most deserving title challenger? No. But he’s a reasonable one, and he’s the guy who got the call. So, if he wins, he’s the true flyweight champion.
At some point, Alexandre Pantoja will return, and he’ll get his chance to prove that all this was just some bad luck, but until then, the division rolls on.
Lee: When is Pantoja coming back? We don’t know? OK, let’s move on, then.
With respect to the great Pantoja, who was making a case to be the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in the world before his freak loss to Van, the rankings wait for no man, and that’s especially true at flyweight, the fastest division in the business. Pantoja deserves an immediate title shot when he’s recovered, no question. But it’s not fair for Van or Taira to have to wait for him to be anointed as the best in the world at 125 pounds.
Our rankings panel kept Pantoja in the top spot after his loss to Van, not only because of the unsatisfying result, but because of the body of work that Pantoja had compiled up to that point. If Van wins Saturday, he’ll have Taira, Brandon Royval, and yes, technically Pantoja on his résumé, and that’s a strong trio of wins in addition to the ranked Bruno “Bulldog” Silva. If Taira is victorious, he’ll count Van, Alex Perez, and Brandon Moreno, some of the greatest flyweights of all time, among his conquests.
Neither man’s accomplishments top Pantoja yet, but it just doesn’t make sense to deny the UFC 328 co-main event winner the No. 1 spot in the rankings when it could be a long wait for Pantoja to defend his claim.
Martin: On paper, yes, Joshua Van or Tatsuro Taira deserve to celebrate as the undisputed UFC flyweight champion, but in the court of public opinion, the winner still needs to go through Alexandre Pantoja. A freak injury ended Pantoja’s completely dominant title reign, and by all accounts, he’s expected back sooner than later, so this isn’t a Dominick Cruz situation where he sat out for years at a time trying to recover from a multitude of surgeries.
It also helps Pantoja’s case that he was a multi-time defending champion, so it wasn’t like he just won the belt six months earlier and then lost it due to that injury.
Unless something truly bizarre happens, Pantoja is next in line, and so long as he fights either Van or Taira next, that settles the debate about who is the true undisputed UFC flyweight champion. But if there are continued delays in Pantoja’s return, for whatever reason, then the division just moves on without him. That doesn’t seem to be the case, especially since Pantoja was approached about potentially replacing Van when he dealt with an injury that forced him out of UFC 327 in April.
That obviously didn’t happen, but all signs point to Pantoja being ready to go. Let him sit cageside on Saturday and watch the fight unfold, and then get in the octagon to set up a future fight against Van or Taira, and that settles the debate.
3. Outside of the top 2 fights, which bout is most intriguing?
Martin: Welterweight has been on fire lately, with the list of contenders trying to get at champion Islam Makhachev constantly growing. At UFC 328, Yaroslav Amosov — who was long considered the best 170-pounder in the world not fighting in the UFC — is making his second appearance in the promotion against Joel Alvarez. Amosov steamrolled Neil Magny in his debut, and he brings an element of grappling and wrestling that seems like the perfect counter to somebody like Makhachev, who routinely mauls his opponents on the ground.
Now Alvarez is only one fight into his welterweight career, but he was building quite an impressive resume at lightweight before making the move. Alvarez always produces an offensive onslaught, and he’s got the size and power to deal with anybody in the weight class. Can he find a way to counter Amosov’s grappling? That’s the question that needs to be answered at UFC 328.
If Amosov can go out and manhandle Alvarez like he did Magny, then the welterweight division has added yet another serious threat to Makhachev’s reign. Simultaneously, if Alvarez can shut down Amosov and score an impressive finish, he injects his name into that same race. This one should be fun.
Meshew: Genuinely, almost every fight on this card is some kind of good, but I’d like to give a special shout-out to the other lightweights. 155 pounds is the best division in the sport and has been for over a decade, and Grant Dawson vs. Mateusz Rebecki is a perfect example of why: this is two guys outside of the top 15 who are going to deliver an incredibly fun and high-level fight.
Dawson seems destined to live forever on the periphery of the top 15, cracking into the rankings occasionally before falling out again. Meanwhile, Rebecki appears fated to always be on the cusp of making a real run, while never quite getting there. But while Dawson might not be everyone’s cup of tea to watch, Rebecki won Fight of the Night in each of his past three fights and is always a good time.
This is gonna be some high-level fun that’s flying under the radar.
Lee: Recently, the UFC’s booking philosophy has been pretty transparent, with plenty of old guard vs. fresh contender fights as well as a healthy heaping of squash matches. However, there has also been a handful of age-appropriate matches, which I appreciate, and UFC 328 has a couple of those in the lightweight division, with Jim Miller taking on Jared Gordon, and my choice for this section: King Green vs. Jeremy Stephens.
These are two warriors from a bygone era, lifers who never really came close to a UFC title shot, but have danced with some of the best to ever step into the cage. Green and Stephens have over 100 pro bouts between them (that we know of), and something would be lost if they never actually faced each other. It’s cliché to call a fight “one for the hardcores,” but damn, this one is really for the hardcores.
I don’t know who has the advantage at this stage of their careers—both esteemed gentlemen turn 40 this year—and I don’t particularly care who wins. Heck, I don’t even care if the fight is all that good (though given their histories, I can’t imagine an absolute borefest). It’s just important to me that the UFC has seemingly embraced an unofficial Senior Circuit, because some fighters are bound to hang on for too long, and if that’s the case with Green and Stephens, at least they’re being put in position to keep getting paid to do what they do best and not just as fodder for the next generation of hungry contenders.
