Strickland's fake heat pays off big for UFC
Strickland stuck to his MO: Big talk, little action, but hey, it works
UFC 328 is in the books.
Thanks to one factor, and one factor alone — Sean Strickland’s gimmick of spewing hate speech leading into the bout — the show drew more interest than every other UFC event of 2026 thus far COMBINED.
Ok, ok, there were two factors involved in the fight’s success, and the second factor was the supposed fearsomeness of previously undefeated champ Khamzat Chimaev.
Fans pissed off at Strickland’s nonsense were tuning in to see Khamzat make him pay — think Khabib Nurmagomedov vs Conor McGregor.
The Khamzat Factor was why this event did so much better than Strickland’s use of the exact same “I’m a racist loudmouth” gimmick against Fluffy Hernandez in February.
And just like the last time Strickland played the race card, he immediately rug-pulled fans by playing nice when it came to fight time and apologizing for his antics after the fight.
Pre-fight, there was a deliberate attempt to recreate the total security vibe from the infamous Mike Tyson-Lennox Lewis 2002 bout in Memphis (pictured left below, right is last night in New Jersey).
But that was as fun as it got.
This Sean Sheehan tweet summed it up:
The most Sean Strickland main event in UFC history. Admitted it was all fake before AND after. Desperate split decision. Fans falling asleep. Division in tatters.
All it was missing was the UFC APEX.
TKO got their American champ
Sean Strickland, American, is the new UFC Middleweight champ.
Some are complaining about that judging decision, but former champ Khamzat Chimaev, a Chechen fighting in the US for an American corporation on Ellison-backed Paramount, should know that a decisive, unquestioned victory is a necessity for a fighter aiming to take the Middleweight title back to the UAE.
For the judges, it came down to the fifth round:
MMA media was split as well, per MMA Decisions, with a 13-11 split in favor of Chimaev:
Why Khamzat Chimaev lost
As a grappler, Chimaev is all ground and no pound.
He dominated the first and fourth rounds positionally, but did no damage on the ground, and therefore Strickland was fresh enough to take the 2nd and 3rd rounds on all three judges’ cards.
The first round provided gullible fans (people like me) who were angry at Strickland a hope that his moment of comeuppance had arrived. Strickland spent the first frame turtled up and doing nothing as Khamzat positionally dominated.
Unfortunately, as I mentioned, Khamzat sprinkled no spice on Strickland’s face, put no tenderizer on the meat…didn’t land a goddamn shot on Strickland’s smart mouth.
The bait, the switch, it gets old
And by the middle of the second round, it was clear that Strickland’s deceptively effective style stood a better than even chance of claiming another high-profile victim.
On top of derailing the promising title run of Fluffy Hernandez, Strickland has now deposed not one, but two heavily favored UFC champs, adding Chimaev to his 2023 upset win over Israel Adesanya.
The total bait-and-switch between Strickland’s pre-fight hate speech and the glove-touching good sportsmanship on display come fight time left fans feeling empty once again.
It’s the story of TKO’s UFC.
It’s the story of Sean Strickland.
Where did “As Real As It Gets” go?
It’s all performative bullshit. Empty, unsatisfying nonsense.
This was the very worst of UFC politically, and Donald Trump didn’t even make an appearance.
The one fight in 2026 that got old-style UFC heat relied upon every crass gimmick in the book, and in the end, people were left unsatisfied or arguing about Sean Strickland and where he ranks historically in UFC.
Strickland’s hype worked
As soon as the YouTube viewer numbers for the pre-fight presser were apparent on Thursday, it was clear that Strickland’s shit-talking campaign and Khamzat’s aura of menace were drawing.
10x more people tuned in for it than for the UFC 327 presser and four times as many as for UFC 234.
The Google Trends evidence is clear. This was easily the biggest UFC event of 2026 so far and drew more Google search traffic than any card since UFC 300 in 2024.
The $7.5 million gate impressed too, up $500K from their last stop in Newark at UFC 316.
We don’t know anything about the numbers for Paramount + (although Google Gemini was more than happy to make up some very impressive numbers and imaginary, but very plausible-looking sources when I queried it.)
I’m very curious to see the numbers and whether or not Strickland’s shtick actually moved the needle with mainstream audiences, if Paramount+ reaches such a thing.
The obvious thing to ask is how many times Strickland can succeed with this bullshit, crying wolf and all that, but that question has been answered: the stupid asshole already built a whole career out of admittedly fake race-baiting and hate speech.
Hell, Jon Anik has been glazing him as a future Hall of Famer for months already.
Luke Thomas joined the Strickland HoF chorus after last night’s win.
Several people were comparing Strickland to NFL legend Eli Manning, whose greatest claim to HoF status is having beaten the Tom Brady Patriots in two Super Bowls.
Presumably, Strickland’s first title defense will be a rematch with Nassourdine Imavov (whom Strickland decisioned at Light Heavyweight in 2023) or a rematch with Dricus Du Plessis, who dominated Strickland to take the title in 2025, before dropping it in a one-sided loss to Chimaev (reminding us all once again that MMA math doesn’t work).
I’m sure someone somewhere is jonesing to see one of those bouts.
The real question, the real TKO magic trick, is how long they can keep getting liberal politicians to spend millions of taxpayer dollars to bring the UFC to town.
As we’ve seen with Democrat Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, plenty of avowed critics of Donald Trump are eager to give Trump’s best friends blue-state tax dollars to bring the kayfabe racist circus to town.
But given that Dana White was bragging about this Australian tabloid at the post-fight presser and mentioning that he keeps a copy in his office, I think it’s safe to say that the TKO brass hopes Strickland can pull off this scam a few more times.
Nate Wilcox is the editor-in-chief of The MMA Draw. He founded Bloody Elbow in 2007 and sold it in 2024.
I tuned into this one because it's been an age since a highly regarded Shooto vet had a shot at UFC gold, and true to Shooto form, he came up short at the finish line, but goddammit, what an amazing fight. To have it followed up by Strickland and Chimaev, two fighters I'd heard and read a lot about but had never actually seen before last night, was a huge buzzkill. Everyone may have tuned in for that flight, but the real main event happened right before it in my book.
Here's Hunter Campbell praising Sean Strickland as a good person who pretends to be a lunatic.
https://x.com/ChampRDS/status/2053552041440501833