Sean Strickland is looking for matchups that will get him to a title fight. The former middleweight champion believes he’s the only one in the 185-pound division that can defeat champion Khamzat Chimaev.
The undefeated Chimaev (15-0) captured the middleweight title at UFC 319 in August, defeating then-champion Dricus Du Plessis in dominating fashion. Strickland has trained with “Borz” and does not like the Chechen.
Coming off a loss to Du Plessis, Strickland is ranked No. 3 but needs a quality win to maintain his contender status and put himself in a position to get a title shot. He believes a win over No. 6 ranked Anthony “Fluffy” Hernandez will do just that.
“I imagine me and ‘Fuffy’ might be going at it,” Strickland told MMAJunkie. “I don’t know, dude. I’d imagine that’s the fight to make.”
“I want to fight that little Chechen whore, so that’s kind of where I’m at. I want to fight somebody like Fluffy. Fluffy puts me in title contention. Especially him because all he does, he’s like the American f**king Chimaev. So, you go and I just out wrestle that f**ker for like five rounds and then it’s like, alright, f**k you whore. Go beat your cans and then let me know when you’re ready. That’s kind of what I’m looking for. I’m looking for more fights that put me back in title contention.”
Getting to fight Chimaev has become personal for Strickland. He also believes that he’s the only one in the division that can hand “Borz” a defeat.
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“I want to fight Chimaev. And you know, a lot of it feels like a personal vendetta because I’m the only f**king one that beats Chimaev. Chimaev knows this. His camp knows this. Everybody f**king knows this, dude. I’m the only one that f**king beats you. I’ve wrestled with all the guys that he’s going to fight and he’s just going to f**king steamroll them.”
“I can’t stand f**king Chimaev,” Strickland continued. “I think what annoys me about Chimaev, there’s nobody that could beat him, you know, as like I’ve trained with all the guys he’s going to fight. I’ve trained with Chimaev.
“For one round, the guy can grapple. For one round, dude. Once you get over that one round of scramble, he just quits. It turns into a kickboxing match like what he did with Gilbert [Burns]. Once you, once he realizes he can’t like f**king maul you and you don’t quit, he quits and it turns into a boxing match.”
“I just don’t know if there’s anybody at that division other than me that like knows what it’s like to grapple those f**kers. I’ve been training with those f**king cave dwellers my whole f**king life. These motherf**kers live in this gym,” Strickland added. “It kind of saddens me that, you know, the Frenchman [Nassourdine Imavov] ain’t doing it. RDR [Reinier de Ridder] ain’t doing it.”
