TLDR
- Sean Strickland threatened to shoot Khamzat Chimaev during fight week at a Wednesday media event
- Chimaev’s coach says the champion laughed at the threats and went straight to training
- Coach Alan Nascimento called Strickland’s gun comments “nonsense” that won’t happen
- Chimaev defends his middleweight title for the first time against Strickland on May 9
- The team is focused only on UFC 328 and not thinking about future plans or weight class changes
Sources: mmafighting.com | sportingnews.com
Khamzat Chimaev’s coach says the UFC middleweight champion laughed when he heard Sean Strickland’s recent threats to shoot him during fight week. The two fighters will headline UFC 328 on May 9 in Newark, New Jersey.
Strickland held a media scrum Wednesday where he made the death threats against Chimaev. “I’m going to pull my gun out and I’m going to shoot him,” Strickland said about any potential confrontation during fight week.
The former champion also said he would be “strapped” when he arrives in New Jersey. He added that if Chimaev approached him with “three Chechnyans that don’t speak English,” he would shoot all of them.
Coach: Khamzat Chimaev ‘laughed’ at Sean Strickland’s gun threats ahead of UFC 328 https://t.co/g205fII0xo
— MMA Fighting (@MMAFighting) April 30, 2026
Coach Says Chimaev Is Unbothered
Alan “Finfou” Nascimento, who has coached Chimaev since his first professional MMA fight, told MMA Fighting his fighter wasn’t bothered by the comments. Nascimento said Chimaev hadn’t even seen Strickland’s statements until Wednesday morning.
“He watched it, laughed, and we went straight to training,” Nascimento said. “Khamzat Chimaev is handling everything really well.”
The coach called the gun threats “just nonsense” and said nobody would take things to that level. “That’s just Sean Strickland being Sean Strickland,” Nascimento added.
Nascimento said the UFC hosts a media day with Chimaev on Thursday. He expects his fighter to fire back with “some nonsense” of his own as part of the promotion.
The coach acknowledged that trash talk has become normal in MMA. However, he said he personally wouldn’t bring up family or kids, though fighters will use whatever they can to destabilize opponents.
Team Focused Only on UFC 328
Chimaev will defend his middleweight belt for the first time since taking it from Dricus Du Plessis. The champion has talked about possibly moving to light heavyweight after this fight.
But Nascimento said the team isn’t thinking about anything beyond Strickland. “From the moment both sides accepted the fight, the very first meeting we had was about eliminating any kind of thinking outside of this fight,” he said.
The coach said he asked Chimaev to stay completely focused on the present. “The most important fight in any athlete’s life is always the next one, and Sean Strickland is the next one,” Nascimento explained.
Nascimento has worked in martial arts for decades and said his job is protecting his fighter’s mental state. He noted that Chimaev is much more mature now than in the past.
Strickland has a record of 30-7 in mixed martial arts. He won the UFC middleweight title in 2023 by defeating Israel Adesanya but lost it in his first defense to Du Plessis.
The former champion received a suspension for his role in an incident at a Tuff-N-Uff event in Las Vegas in 2025. He most recently defeated Anthony Hernandez in February, earning a “Performance of the Night” bonus.
UFC 328 will air live on Paramount+ from the Prudential Center in Newark. The card also features flyweight champion Joshua Van defending his title against Tatsuro Taira.
