Khamzat Chimaev has finished one of the most insane press conferences in UFC history by slamming a kick into Sean Strickland during the face off, forcing no less than 10 security staff, including armed police officers, to intervene.
Exactly where said leg kick landed was hard to tell given the mass of bodies – but land it did.
From there, an unsurprisingly furious Strickland was then forcibly held back, and eventually removed from the stage, and soon after tweeted of the assault: “Exactly what I expected a coward to do”.
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The incredibly wild ending – which is already going viral online — followed almost 30 minutes of intense, and undeniably ugly, verbal tongue fu between the two headliners of this Sunday’s UFC 328 blockbuster in Newark, New Jersey this Sunday.
After months of bad blood between the UFC stars, the press conference opened with both men not only flanked by hulking security and police officers – who, incredibly, had participated in practice runs of the face off beforehand – but with the pair not even allowed take their usual spots by the podium.
Instead, those seats were filled by UFC flyweight champ Joshua Van and challenger, Tatsuro Taira – with the co-main fighters, throughout proceedings, doing little more than act as space between slurs of varying magnitudes.
At one point, Strickland threatened to kill the UFC middleweight champion, whose own contribution to the back-and-forth involved continually reminding Strickland of the abuse he suffered as a child at the hands of his father.
The American, in turn, slammed the Chechnyan for everything from briefly retiring due to Covid, quitting a sparring session, refusing an offer to sort things in the street, and (most notably, and often) the champion’s long-standing relationship with Ramzan Kadyrov.
Incredibly, the pair had not even found their seats when the assaults started flying.
“All f***ing talk,” Strickland shouted, standing with microphone in hand as his rival walked onto stage. “You’ve had your chance and you never step up”.
And with that, we were underway.
“F*** up bitch,” replied the undefeated champion whose building list of scalps includes the likes of Dricus du Plessis, Kamaru Usman, Gilbert Burns, even Australia’s own Robert Whittaker.
“I’m going to be your daddy in the cage …”
Strickland: “Oh, yeah, you f***ing Chechnyan f***ing whore? I’ll send you back to your [inaudible] …”
Chimaev, laughing now: “Cry … cry … I’m going to be your daddy in the cage. Make you cry again. Yeeeew.”
Strickland, standing now in his The Great American Hop t-shirt: “This guy leaves his sh***y country. Flees to Sweden, goes back home, whores himself out to a f***ing dictator and wants to talk like a man?”.
Chimaev: “Sit down you f***ing bitch. I’m going to be your daddy …”
Strickland: “You f***ing pussy, you f***ing whore”.
At which point, finally, Dana White leaned into his lecturn microphone in the middle of the stage.
“What’s up everybody,” he shouted, “welcome to the press conference”.
And so for another 20 minutes or more, things continued this way.
Originally published as Security, police officers forced to intervene after wild end to craziest preser in UFC history
