UFC 328 preview roundtable: Whom would the UFC prefer to win — Khamzat Chimaev or Sean Strickland?

Khamzat Chimaev grapples with Dricus du Plessis during their middleweight title bout at UFC 319 at the United Center on Aug. 16, 2025, in Chicago. (Photo by Geoff Stellfox/Getty Images)

(Geoff Stellfox via Getty Images)

Chuck: Don’t have to wait the full 10 years, Petesy. I am looking at my watch here and … yes, at 8:17 a.m. on Thursday, May 7, as I write this, it already looks dumb. One thing I’ve noticed is that bestiality claims rarely age well unless proof can be furnished.

The easy answer is that it’s both a win-win and a lose-lose. As in, both champions have appeal, yet both bring baggage to the Octagon. From the UFC’s perspective, Strickland’s relish tray of phobias – homophobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia, joyophobia – barely concerns them, but calling Dana a “sick f***” might be pushing things a little far.

Sometimes you have to look at the future on these types of things, though. Strickland against either of the other top contenders (Dricus du Plessis and Nassourdine Imavov) doesn’t hit home as he’s already faced both (given that he fought Imavov at 205 pounds), while for Chimaev there are some fresh matchups to be found. I honestly don’t know if Chimaev will stick around long enough to see them all, if we’re being honest.

I think he may bolt for light heavyweight at his earliest convenience.

Given the anticlimactic nature in which Alexandre Pantoja lost the belt at UFC 323, does Joshua Van feel like the real flyweight champion in his first title defense against Tatsuro Taira?

Chuck: You know, Petesy, that fight can’t help but carry an asterisk because of the way it ended. Had Van caught Pantoja with a big shot – as Conor McGregor did with Jose Aldo to win the featherweight title – we might be singing him to the moon, but that nasty elbow injury at 26 seconds into the fight means we didn’t learn anything about how they match up.

Having said that, injuries are part of fighting. Back when Tom Aspinall blew out his knee and Curtis Blaydes got his hand raised, we had to accept it as a result. Of course, they rematched, and Aspinall came in like the Count of Monte Cristo, ready to exact some of that old Salford Revenge. I suspect Pantoja is mashing his fists, seeing this whippersnapper running around masquerading with his belt.

But I see Van as the champion. And if he goes in there on Saturday and beats the brakes off Taira, I think we should be more focused on his prowess than how the circumstances broke in his favor to get there.

Petesy: I wish I was where you’re at with this, Chuck. I can’t shake the anticlimactic finish to Van’s title win. We were just giving Pantoja his flowers, too, and then this happened. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of these people who is upset about Van celebrating the victory or anything like that, I just feel like this matchup with Taira feels like they’re trying to brush the Pantoja reign under the carpet, especially given that he probably could’ve had the rematch if the UFC just waited another month.

One thing I agree with you on is that if Van wins, everything will feel a bit more settled at flyweight, but what if Taira does a job on him? The division will feel as unhinged as heavyweight. We need our Brazilian king back to verify these lads ASAP. I won’t be able to move on until we do.

Given the state of the heavyweight division, does a win get Waldo Cortes-Acosta a title shot?

Petesy: The answer to this question might terrify some people. But, in a hypothetical world where Cortes-Acosta gets a win over Alexander Volkov, and the following week Cyril Gane announces that he’s injured and can’t fight at the White House event, who gets the call to fill the French fighter’s slot?

That’s right. You know the answer. The Dominican slugger gets the moment the world has been waiting for … or something. It’s a harrowing insight into the state of the maximum weight class in this day and age, but am I wrong, Chuck?

Chuck: Can you imagine? If that were to take place we’d need a map to help guide us through, because we’d be on one of the greatest detours this sport has ever known. We’d go from Francis vacating the title, to Jon Jones winning it then vacating it, to Tom Aspinall winning it and getting sidelined due to an injury against Cyril Gane, who would then be stepping in to fight for the interim belt on these loose merits before getting injured and replaced with Cortes-Acosta to face division newcomer Alex Pereira.

My brain hurts.

Sean Brady (ranked No. 6) is fighting Joaquin Buckley (No. 9) — what’s at stake in this welterweight clash?

Chuck: It’s a cloudy Magic 8 Ball at welterweight, as there are so many legit contenders. When Brady stacked those wins against Kelvin Gastelum, Gilbert Burns and Leon Edwards, he was at the forefront in the proverbial mix to be next. Yet he couldn’t get through what amounted to a “stay busy” situation against phenom Michael Morales.

With Morales now planted in the top three, and Carlos Prates coming off that big win over Jack Della Maddalena, and Ian Garry tentatively slated to face Islam Makhachev for the title, that leaves the winner of this fight on the outside looking in. And if Buckley wins it, you think Kamaru Usman – the former champ who insists he should be next – won’t throw a tantrum if Buckley cuts the line? Usman beat Buckley easily last June.

So to answer the question, whoever wins this one is merely holding their place in line until other guys start to slip.

Petesy: Yeah, it’s a weird fight where a win doesn’t do a whole lot but a loss is absolutely detrimental. I don’t know if its proximity to last week’s Perth event is making me look more gravely upon the situation, but both of these guys have to be considering the pendulum swing of Della Maddalena’s career on the back of two consecutive losses.

They’re both staring down the barrel of being in the exact same position. JDM’s fighting style and demeanor was adored by fans. Brady and Buckley are held in similar regard despite not having held the belt, but a loss at this stage could see them fall off a cliff in terms of intrigue.

Regardless of the stakes, it’s a really quality matchup, and it might be the best fight on the card as a pure spectacle for me.

Ateba Gautier is back in action against Osman Diaz. Gautier is a terrifying prospect, but do you think he is a future contender at middleweight?

Petesy: I love me some Ateba and I’m a huge fan of everything that Carl Prince has done at Manchester Top Team to allow someone from Cameroon to come into the fold and shine the way he has. The stories of Ateba in the training room are insane. People told me when he came in he couldn’t quite understand that sparring wasn’t to be contested with the same intensity as a fight, so Prince would have to watch him like a hawk to ensure he didn’t do too much damage to his dance partners.

Prince believes there is still a lot of work to do with Ateba, but has praised his dedication and his aptitude to learn. At middleweight, I think he can absolutely be a contender, and I doubt Diaz is going to bring anything to the table to make me feel any different, to be honest.

Chuck: Yeah, Ozzy is the warm body the UFC is serving up, and Gautier should be able to put on a showcase here. The one thing I’ll say is that Gautier does seem a little raw, still. Perhaps it was all those street fights he had growing up in Cameroon; the habits of the street are hard to break in the sanctioned world of the cage.

In his last fight against Andrey Pulyaev, Gautier didn’t seem to know how to corral him to keep his string of first-round finishes intact. It was a little anticlimactic if we're being honest. If he blows up Diaz with elbows and punches the way he did Tre’ston Vines, my guess is the hype train will start trucking down the tracks again.

As for a future contender, I can see it, Petesy. The dude is just 24 years old. You mentioned Carl Prince and Manchester Top Team, and that’s a big reason why he can. The scaffolding will be there as he gets into the more skilled opponents. He is in a division, too, where a lot of guys are either aging out or have reached their ceilings. With a couple more earth-shattering finishes, Gautier could come on like the blood-dimmed tide!

When Jim Miller debuted at UFC 89 in 2008, Raul Rosas Jr. had just turned 4 years old. How long can Old Man Miller hang on?

Chuck: Petesy, there was an old oak tree in New Jersey known as the Basking Ridge White Oak. The indigenous Lenape people of the area used to say it wouldn’t make it past the age of 250, and the Dutch settlers who came along doubted it would still be lighting candles at 400. The Quakers? They scoffed at the idea of 500 when the tree kept going.

That sucker died at 619 years old, Petesy. It died in 2016.

I think Jim Miller is like that old oak tree. He has UFC 400 circled, just so he can say he was the only man to fight on all the centennials, but I think we’re merely in our Quaker state for this Millerian arc. He could go on fighting until there are cars flying through the sky. They make them tough in New Jersey.

Petesy: Hang on a second, they make tough flying cars in New Jersey?

Oh wait, sorry, I misread that.

Ah, yes, Miller as the Basking Ridge White Oak, I get it now. Here’s the thing about the Basking Ridge White Oak, Chuck. I just searched it online, and the image that comes up shows the tree in all its glory in 2013, at the ripe old age of 616. It’s resplendent, a rich green and sprawls as if its branches could touch either side of the New Jersey state lines. It’s hard to believe that just three years later, its race was run and those same branches were probably being used for firewood.

There’s an analogy about the fight game somewhere in there, but I’m with you: Let’s celebrate Jim Miller, a timeless wonder, still resplendent, and someone, especially for the longer-in-the-tooth section of MMA fandom like ourselves, who is a joy to behold.

I’m here for the UFC 400 dream, and I fully believe he will board some more people for that hype train when he fights Jared Gordon this weekend.