Sean Strickland shares prediction for Dricus Du Plessis vs Khamzat Chimaev title fight

Sean Strickland has shared his prediction for the middleweight title fight between Dricus Du Plessis and Khamzat Chimaev.

Du Plessis is set to defend his middleweight title in the main event of UFC 319 on August 16. It’s a highly anticipated bout, and heading into the fight, Du Plessis is a +162 underdog while the challenger is a -210 favorite on FanDuel.

Although Dricus Du Plessis is the betting underdog, Sean Strickland believes the champ will get it done. He has fought Du Plessis twice and has trained with Chimaev, and he thinks the champ will be too much for Chimaev.

“They can grapple,” Strickland said of Chimaev in an interview with Helen Yee (via MMAJunkie). “Someone like me, I’ve been training these f*ckers for years. I usually could counter-wrestle and grapple them. So, I just don’t know if f*cking Dricus can be able to counter-wrestle him. But if he can, I think he wins, hands down. I sparred the f*cking Chechen wh*re. Hands down, I think Dricus wins. It’s just going to come down to are you going to be able to stop that and counter-wrestle him? You can. It’s not hard.”

It’s an intriguing prediction from Sean Strickland, as he seems very confident Dricus Du Plessis will remain the middleweight champion when he faces Khamzat Chimaev. If Du Plessis does beat Chimaev, he would hand the challenger his first career loss.

Sean Strickland calls out Belal Muhammad as he looks to return

As for Sean Strickland, he doesn’t have his next fight booked but is getting antsy to return.

Strickland wanted to face Reinier de Ridder after he beat Bo Nickal, but he was booked against Robert Whittaker. With that, Strickland wants to face Belal Muhammad, the former welterweight champion, as the American thinks Muhammad should move up.

“Belal would be a fun fight, that’d be a fun one,” Strickland said to Yee. “Belal, you should f*cking sack up, dog. This is it. You can finally sack the f*ck up, dude. All that shit you talked, man, we can finally make it happen. Lost your belt, you kind of got f*cked up, I got f*cked up. We should make that fight happen, Belal. That’d be a good one, right?”

Sean Strickland is 29-7 as a pro and coming off a decision loss to Du Plessis in their rematch.