Khamzat Chimaev (15-0 MMA, 9-0 UFC) will defend his middleweight title for the first time in the UFC 328 headliner vs. Sean Strickland at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, on May 9.

Caesars opened Chimaev as a -425 favorite Thursday night, leaving Strickland as a +290 underdog. BetRivers has Chimaev as a -530 ‘chalk’ with Strickland at +390 on the comeback.

The 35-year-old Strickland (30-7 MMA, 17-7 UFC) earned another title shot with a third-round knockout win over Anthony ‘Fluffy’ Hernandez, who was on an eight-fight winning streak going into the UFC Houston main event on Feb. 21.

After the win, Strickland told reporters, “Who wants to see two little goat f*ckers go at it? You want to see a f*cking American fight this little Chechen whore on American soil. This is the fight that needs to happen.”

In response, Chimaev posted the following remarks to his X (formerly Twitter) account: “Habibi calm down, I destroyed the guy who beat you twice.”

Indeed, Chimaev absolutely dominated Dricus du Plessis for 25 minutes at UFC 319, winning the middleweight championship by unanimous decision (50-44, 50-44, 50-44) at United Center in Chicago. The 31-year-old rag dolled the South African to the ground in the opening moments of each round and kept him there.

Chimaev kept top control on the ground for nearly the entire bout. Although he wasn’t taking many chances going for submissions or being aggressive in dealing out ground-and-pound treatment, it was still extremely effective despite being boring for the fans.

Whatever the case, Chimaev finally got his hands on UFC gold and remained unbeaten. In nine Octagon appearances, he’s won in lopsided fashion seven times.

Only Gilbert Burns and Kamaru Usman have been competitive with Chimaev, and both men nearly pulled monster upsets. I was in Jacksonville for Chimaev-Burns, and it’s the best fight I’ve ever witnessed live.

Burns and Chimaev dropped each other multiple times in an epic stand-up battle that left both men a bloody mess. Nevertheless, Chimaev edged the Brazilian via UD (29-28, 29-28, 29-28).

Usman took the fight against Chimaev on 11 day’s notice, and he had to fly all the way to Abu Dhabi and make his debut in the 185-pound division. Chimaev dominated Round 1, taking Usman’s back early and proceeding to threaten him with submission attempts for four-plus minutes.

Usman was able to survive, though, and start enjoying success in Round 2. Once he stuffed a couple of takedowns, he started landing some punches. MajorWager had scored Round for Chimaev by a 10-8 score, but we went with Usman 10-9 in the second frame.

MajorWager also scored the third round for Usman for a 28-28 draw, but the judges gave Chimaev a majority decision (29-27, 29-27, 28-28) in the UFC 291 co-main event.

After a year off, Chimaev returned at UFC 308 and defeated Robert Whittaker by first-round submission (face crank) to earn a title shot vs. Du Plessis.

From October of 2018 to February of 2022, Strickland went on a six-fight winning streak, defeating the likes of Brendan Allen, Uriah Hall and Jack Hermansson. After dropping back-to-back scraps vs. Alex Pereira and Jared Cannonier, he bounced back with a pair of wins to earn a title shot vs. Israel Adesanya.

Strickland dropped Adesanya in the opening round and hurt him badly with follow-up punches. Although ‘The Last Stylebender’ survived the barrage, he really never got back in the fight, and Strickland shockingly became the new middleweight champion via UD win (49-46, 49-46, 49-46) at UFC 293 in Sydney, Australia.

In his first title defense, Strickland lost a split decision to Du Plessis at UFC 297 in Toronto. Five months later, he rebounded with a split-decision victory over Paulo Costa at UFC 302.

The win over Costa earned him another shot vs. Du Plessis, who left no doubt with the judges the second time around. DDP won by UD rather handily (50-45, 50-45, 49-46) at UFC 312.

After a year off, Strickland produced one of the best performances of his career against Hernandez, setting him up with an opportunity to become a two-time UFC middleweight champ.

To do so, he’ll have to take the zero off of Chimaev’s unblemished record.