Joe Rogan has heaped praise on Sean Strickland after the new middleweight champion’s title-winning performance over Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 328.
Strickland defeated Chimaev this past Saturday at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., claiming the UFC middleweight title in a fight Rogan says he was fully invested in. “I was nut-riding for Strickland the whole time,” Rogan said on his podcast, the Joe Rogan Experience.
Rogan highlighted Strickland’s ability to endure tough moments and keep pushing. “I was like, that guy is the f*cking captain of the deep water. He knows how to go into deep water, man. And he knows how to survive. He can survive.”
Discussing the matchup, Rogan pointed to Chimaev’s usual style and why it didn’t fully translate against Strickland. “And the thing about Khamzat is if he takes you down, he wants to hold you down and just beat on you and not expend a lot of energy, like he did with Dricus (Du Plessis). You can't do that with Sean. Sean is not going to sit still. He's very hard to hold down. He's got super underrated grappling. Super underrated. When you saw he almost threw Khamzat later in the fight, and he did wind up on top multiple times.”
Rogan also emphasized the injuries Strickland reported leaving UFC 328 with, including a Type 2 AC separation, an extended Type 5 SLAP tear, and a partial rotator cuff tear or tendinosis. “He ain't easy for anybody, and he had a blown-out shoulder,” Rogan said, later adding, “Sean had one arm… Still won. Still fought, when a lot of guys would have pulled out.”
