Khamzat Chimaev will defend his middleweight title against former champ Sean Strickland and one of the fighters who trains with ‘Borz’ has weighed in on this bad blood filled bout at UFC 328 on May 9th. 

Zebaztian Kadestam is the combatant in question who works alongside the dominant UFC titleholder out of All Stars in Sweden. Kadestam is a former ONE welterweight champion who recently made his Oktagon MMA debut. He has been a long time teammate of Chimaev’s and when offering his thoughts on this Sean Strickland fight coming up on Saturday night, Kadestam said [via Bowks Talking Bouts],

“Yeah, I think he can knock him out, submit him, or go to a decision. But I think Strickland is a tough opponent and he’s one of the guys that could make it to a tough fight. But like I said, I believe Khamzat has the skills to either knock him out, submit him, or or just grind him for 25 minutes. But yeah, he’s tough Strickland, but he’s kind of like either he shows up or he doesn’t. Khamzat always shows up. He’s a monster.”

Khamzat Chimaev drops sparring footage with Sean Strickland ahead of UFC 328

Khamzat Chimaev and Sean Strickland have a backstory that involves some intense training room scenarios against one another with the former recently releasing video footage of sparring between the pair. A prior interview from years ago with The Schmo saw information imparted about Chimaev getting the better of Strickland in what has since been described as a situational grappling situation in Las Vegas.

This all transpired at Xtreme Couture and ‘Borz’ dropped the evidence online. Taking to his X account and utilizing a caption that played off of comments Strickland has made about how Chimaev would bully smaller and weaker fighters in the gym, Khamzat Chimaev stated,

“I am bullying weak people.”