Former champion Israel Adesanya gave his take on the middleweight title fight at UFC 328.
Khamzat Chimaev (15-0 MMA, 9-0 UFC) makes his first 185-pound title defense against Sean Strickland (30-7 MMA, 17-7 UFC) in the May 9 main event in Newark, N.J. (Paramount+). Chimaev has opened up as a big favorite over Strickland, who he’s trained with in the past at Xtreme Couture.
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Adesanya (24-5 MMA, 13-5 UFC) was upset by Strickland in a title loss at UFC 293, and knows the kind of pressure he’s able to bring in a fight.
“I think he can (upset Chimaev) if it goes to the later rounds and he doesn’t get taken down,” Adesanya said in an interview with UFC on Paramount+. “But again, Chimaev is a bat out of hell. He’s a guy that comes aggressively straight away, and Strickland can match that, probably. But we’ll see. And they’ve trained together, so there’s probably something that happened in the gym that we are not privy to. That will be interesting, but I look forward to watching it and reacting to it.”
After losing his UFC middleweight title to Strickland, Adesanya would go on to drop two more fights to Dricus Du Plessis and Nassourdine Imavov. He will look to rebound when he takes on Joe Pyfer (15-3 MMA, 6-1 UFC) in Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 271 (Paramount+) headliner at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle.
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Israel Adesanya not ruling out Sean Strickland against Khamzat Chimaev
