Some rivalries in the UFC are manufactured and others feature such disdain between the fighters that the promotion has to plan ahead to try and curb any potential violence. It’s safe to say the UFC 328 main event between middleweight champion Khamzat Chimaev and Sean Strickland falls into that latter category.
The bad blood between Chimaev and Strickland is legendary at this point and that’s going to require the UFC to put measures in place to ensure these two don’t get into a brawl just days before the event. So UFC CEO Dana White says the promotion is already planning to beef up security in every way, shape and form possible to keep Chimaev and Strickland separated during fight week.
That includes nixing the recent addition of a pre-fight faceoff staged by Paramount that is used to hype up an event but White doesn’t want Chimaev and Strickland anywhere near each other.
“I hope somebody told them [that isn’t happening],” White told Spinnin’ Backfist about informing Paramount about no fight-week faceoff between Chimaev and Strickland. “Because that is the case. Because that is a fact.
“No bullshit, we’re going to beef up security and law enforcement and everything. All of it. Hotels, bumping into each other, all that [kind of stuff].”
As White eluded to there, the UFC also plans to put Chimaev and Strickland into separate hotels just to cut down on any risk they might bump into each other in the lobby, elevators or anywhere else where an encounter could potentially erupt into mayhem.
“Definitely [putting them in separate hotels],” White said. “That’s definitely going to happen.”
Of course, the UFC has learned a valuable lesson about these kinds of rivalries in the past, especially after Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz started launching full soda cans at each other during a pre-fight press conference. That led to the UFC actually emptying all cans placed on stage just to prevent another altercation like that from happening.
Despite their best efforts, UFC security has definitely been tested — including McGregor attacking a bus filled with fighters in an attempt to get to Khabib Nurmagomedov. After Nurmagomedov tapped out McGregor when they actually fought, the undefeated Russian leapt over the cage and attacked Dillon Danis, who was cornering the Irish superstar that night.
Also who could forget Strickland actually diving over several rows of fans and fighters to try and fight Dricus du Plessis at an event before they met for the first time.
In other words, the UFC has a lot of work to do to prevent Chimaev and Strickland from punching each other before meeting in the main event in New Jersey on May 9.
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