UFC 328: Khamzat Chimaev vs. Sean Strickland picks and predictions
See who we think will win Prudential Center this weekend.
UFC 328 goes live this weekend in Newark, NJ. And what a card we have on our hands.
Repellent personalities and personal connections aside, Khamzat Chimaev vs. Sean Strickland is a fascinating match-up. Chimaev might be on his way to a GOAT like career. The mercurial Strickland might be on his way to shocking the world, again. It’s going to be very interesting to see if Chimaev can repeat what he did to win the UFC middleweight title or whether Strickland is capable of pulling off another perfect performance (like we saw against Israel Adesanya and, more recently, Fluffy Hernandez).
The co-main event has the UFC flyweight title on the line. We might as well call it a vacant title considering that Joshua Van won it on a freak injury. He’s got Tatsuro Taira in his first defence. And he’s an underdog in that match, too.
The rest of the main card is very fun. We’ve got the Salsa Boy Waldo Cortes-Acosta looking to keep his amazing run going. He’s got a stiff test in the former of Alexander Volkov, though. We’ve also got Joaquin Buckley vs. Sean Brady and King Green vs. Jeremy Stephens (that should be on Fuel TV, no?).
The prelims have some bangers, too, with Ateba Gautier vs. Ozzy Diaz, Joel Alvarez vs. Yaroslov Amosov and Jim Miller vs. Jared Gordon.
As always you can see our picks below. And, because this is a PLE, we’ve got our reasonings behind the picks, too.
We nailed UFC Perth last week, even if only Nate and Kristen picked Carlos Prates in the main event. On the whole we all had very good records. Kristen had the best, going 14-4. She missed on her lock pick, though (Ben Johnston). I hit on mine (Cam Rowston) and that’s a big reason for why I’m still top. I’m 13-1 when it comes to making lock picks this year.
Check out who are locks are this weekend, below.
Leader board
Khamzat Chimaev (-575) vs. Sean Strickland (+425)
Miguel Class: There are some ways where I could imagine a Sean Strickland win, but that’s more to do with some of the unknowns of Chimaev than anything else. Strickland is such a known commodity at this point that it is tiresome and we know exactly what he brings to the table. He is an above-average backfoot boxer when he gets the perfect opponent who will come forward on him but not too aggressively (e.g. Fluffy) and he’s an uninspiring pressure fighter who throws almost entirely jabs and teeps when faced with an elusive opponent (see the Costa fight).
My only continued reservations about Chimaev stem from his aggression dropping off significantly in later rounds of tough fights, but we’re two and a half years removed from the Usman fight and Chimaev had only been a professional for five years at that point. Plus, we saw him go five rounds with DDP, although Chimaev was obviously losing some explosiveness as the rounds went on.