Khamzat Chimaev and Sean Strickland Went to War in Sparring – MMA Coach
Sean Strickland’s head coach, Eric Nicksick, recently shared more details about Strickland and Khamzat Chimaev’s 2022 sparring sessions.
While Chimaev and Strickland now despise each other, there was a time when training with “Borz” made Nicksick and the rest of the team better, as the latter has admitted, and Chimaev was always welcome at Xtreme Couture.
The Chechen-born Emirati is set to make the first defense of his middleweight title in the main event of UFC 328 and will face Strickland.
Eric Nicksick believes his pupil can give the champion a “tough” fight. During a recent interview with Action Network, he said:
“There’s a backstory [between Strickland and Chimaev]. Sean and Khamzat being training partners while Khamzat was in the gym, the back and forth [online] and all that stuff. But stylistically, Sean can give Khamzat a tough fight.”
Nicksick added that while training with “Borz,” he and his entire team not only learned some new and effective tricks to use in the octagon but also picked up work ethic lessons and insight into how Chimaev approaches the game:
“Khamzat made us better. He was a great welcome addition to the room. He was still dealing with some of the after-effects of COVID, but just watching his work ethic and the way he approached the game. I definitely took a lot from him, not only just from watching the way that he worked, but some of the things that he was doing on the ground. We have a code word for certain things he would do on the ground, I’d call out “don’t forget the Khamzat here”.
While Strickland has previously claimed that he made “Borz” quit during training and that Chimaev would pick on the weaker guys in the gym, Nicksick did not want to reveal during the same interview who got the upper hand during training.
Instead, the 46-year-old added that an official bout between former training partners can play out differently than “the epic battles” Khamzat Chimaev and Sean Strickland had in the gym:
“The epic battles [he has with Sean], epic back and forth those guys had. There was a practice where basically the whole mat got cleared off because Sean and Khamzat were getting after. And it was just cool to see, and a lot of things that happen in the training room. I’m always going to keep quiet, but we know what took off and what went on in the room, but that’s the training room. You can never really tell what happens when the lights come on. Stuff is always different.”
Eric Nicksick on how Sean Strickland can stop Khamzat Chimaev
In a previous interview with Submission Radio, Eric Nicksick discussed the blueprint Sean Strickland needs to dethrone Khamzat Chimaev. The head coach at Xtreme Couture believes Strickland has to disrupt Chimaev’s “chain wrestling sequences” and make “Borz” doubt his own game.
Check out Eric Nicksick’s comments below:
Meanwhile, Khamzat Chimaev’s recent sparring sessions with former UFC light heavyweight title challenger Khalil Rountree Jr. suggest that “Borz” is sharpening his striking and aims to knock out “Tarzan” rather than chasing a submission at UFC 328.
Check out Khamzat Chimaev’s recent sparring clip below:
