A pair of world titles will be at stake on Saturday, including one of the hottest feuds in recent memory in the main event, when UFC 328 takes place inside the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.
Unbeaten middleweight champion Khamzat Chimaev will make his first title defense against bitter rival and former beltholder Sean Strickland in the headliner. In the co-main event, Joshua Van will make the first defense of his flyweight title against streaking contender Tatsuro Taira.
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As we draw closer to this weekend’s event, let’s take a look at the biggest storylines surrounding UFC 328.
1. Khamzat Chimaev and Sean Strickland really, really don’t like each other
What began as a disagreement inside the Extreme Couture gym in Las Vegas, where Strickland accused the visiting Chimaev of being a bully to his sparring partners, has turned into one of the hottest blood feuds in recent UFC title history. Chimaev will put his 15-0 record and middleweight title at stake in his first fight since absolutely demolishing Dricus du Plessis to win the belt last August. And to suggest that UFC is doing the right move by increasing its security detail ahead of Saturday would be an understatement. The heat here is real — very real — and has even escalated to potentially dangerous levels after Strickland, during a media scrum last week amid training camp, threatened he would shoot Chimaev and his team if they confronted him during fight week. The brash Strickland (30-7) has repeatedly called Chimaev a “weak man” and hasn’t let a recent interview go by without degrading the native of Russia on just about every topic. UFC is expecting to limit any faceoffs or potential interactions between the two to Friday’s ceremonial weigh in. To paraphrase the late WWE Hall of Famer Gorilla Monsoon, the tension hovering above the Octagon this weekend will be so thick, you can cut it with a knife.
2. If Strickland can’t slow Chimaev, are there any middleweights who can?
That’s the question that has been thrown by fans and critics alike of late given Chimaev’s sublime grappling skills and the mean streak in which he inflicts ground and pound. If there was anyone at 185 pounds in the aftermath of Chimaev’s title win last year who the general public thought had the ground game and/or motor to match Chimaev, the answers would’ve been Reiner de Ridder and Anthony “Fluffy” Hernandez. But RDR suffered a pair of defeats and has subsequently moved up to light heavyweight. Hernandez, meanwhile, was absolutely dominated in a shocking third-round TKO defeat to Strickland that revived the 35-year-old former champion’s title hopes. Strickland has stopped 76% of takedowns over his UFC career and possesses plenty of intangibles like cardio, defense and a willingness to fight in the pocket (despite being a 4-to-1 betting underdog) to potentially give Chimaev issues. Chimaev, who averages more than five takedowns per 15 minutes, is fresh off of dominating du Plessis, the former champion who twice defeated Strickland in title bouts over the last two years. But MMA math is never perfect and Strickland just might have the best skill set and style available to give pulling the upset over such a dominant champion a try.
3. The youth movement at men’s flyweight is upon us
While it wasn’t the most convincing 125-pound title win last December, when Joshua Van pushed defending champion Alexandre Pantoja to the canvas just 26 seconds into the fight to cause a badly dislocated elbow, the 24-year-old native of Myanmar will tell you himself that the TKO win was the result of something he caused. And the fallout of the victory has sparked an interesting youth movement atop the division. With the 36-year-old Pantoja still recovering from injury, Van (16-2) will make his first title defense on Saturday against 26-year-old Japanese finisher Tatsuro Taira (18-1) in what is expected to be an exciting and fast-paced bout. In recent years, the division has been dominated by veteran champions like Pantoja, Brandon Moreno and Deiveson Figueiredo. But the quick emergence of both Van and Taira, alongside 26-year-old London native Lone’er Kavanagh, who upset Moreno in February on short notice, have created a bright future at flyweight. And that future appears to very much be right now.
4. Tatsuro Taira is one win away from making Japanese MMA history
For a country like Japan that is so rooted in martial arts lore and widely considered to be one of the birth places of MMA, the fact that the “Land of the Rising Sun” has yet to produce a single UFC champion remains an almost unthinkable trivia footnote. In fact, in the early 2000s, Japan served as the epicenter of the sport behind the theatrical PRIDE promotion, which still holds the sport’s global attendance record of 91,107 for a fight card at Tokyo National Stadium in 2002. Both Kazushi Sakuraba and Kenichi Yamamoto won four-man tournaments promoted by UFC in the late 1990s but never a divisional title. Yamamoto later became one of seven Japanese-born fighters to challenge for UFC titles unsuccessfully, in a list that includes current 125-pound fighters Kyoji Horiguchi (2015) and Kai Asukara (2024). But Taira, who is 8-1 inside the Octagon since making his UFC debut in 2022, has an excellent shot at becoming the first as he enters as a slight betting favorite against the defending champion Van. Taira’s lone UFC defeat was by split decision to Brandon Royval in 2024 and the native of Okinawa is fresh off of a stoppage over the former two-time champion Moreno.
5. A top-five heavyweight clash could have major title implications
Despite all of the uncertainty surrounding the heavyweight title picture, including champion Tom Aspinall’s recovery from double eye surgery and the UFC’s refusal to book Jon Jones, it would be hard to deny the winner of Saturday’s Alexander Volkov and Waldo Cortes-Acosta a shot at the belt. The No. 2-ranked Volkov (39-11) has won five of his last six fights, including a split-decision loss to Ciryl Gane in 2024 that everyone (including UFC CEO Dana White) thought was a robbery. Meanwhile, No. 4 Cortes-Acosta (17-2) has become one of the division’s bright spots as a surprise contender following an 8-1 stretch since 2023. Cortes-Acosta has cut to the head of the class by staying busy as he enters his eighth fight of the last 14 months, looking for his fourth straight win since November. With Aspinall’s return date still unknown, UFC will promote an interim heavyweight title bout at the White House in June between Gane and former two-division champion Alex Pereira. That could open up a huge opportunity for the winner this weekend.
