Sean Strickland discusses injury suffered before UFC 328, squashing beef with Chimaev

Sean Strickland fought at less than 100% at UFC 328. | Getty/UFC

If it seems like Sean Strickland was even more relliant on his jab than usual at UFC 328, well, there might be a reason for that.

Strickland regained the middleweight title with a split-decision triumph over Khamzat Chimaev in Saturday’s main event at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. After being grounded for the majority of Round 1, Strickland gradually built momentum by turning the fight into a standup battle — where he was able to outduel his Chechen rival. Still, Strickland wasn’t 100% during his upset victory due to an injury he sustained while sparring former Bellator champ Johnny Eblen.

"You guys want to hear something funny?" Strickland said at the post-fight press conference. "So on Tuesday, I'm sparring Johnny, that motherf—er, the PFL champ. And I'm at Plinio's gym, Cruz's gym, and he f—ing shoots on me, and I hit his brick-ass wall, and I separated my shoulder. So I had a Grade 1 AC joint separation on Tuesday.”

Ultimately, Strickland was able to overcome the injury, as he outlanded Chimaev by a 123-to-98 count in significant strikes. And though he was taken down nine times in the bout, Chimaev was only able to log 7:16 of control time in the 25-minute contest — and nearly five minutes of that occurred in Round 1.

As for the supposed bad blood with Chimaev, it appeared to be short lived, if it existed at all. The two fighters were cordial during the fight, and Chimaev wrapped the belt around Strickland at the conclusion of the championship clash.

“There is something, unless you’ve experienced it, you just don’t know what it’s like,” Strickland said. “When you go and fight another man, your soul is just exposed. When you’re f—king bleeding, and he’s bleeding, I want to quit; he wants to quit, we don’t want to be there, you just have this level of respect for one another. It transcends race, religion, nationality, country. It’s something that you just don’t know. You kind of become someone’s brother after you and him try to die, win or lose.”