Khamzat Chimaev kicked Sean Strickland – despite the presence of armed police on stage – as the pair faced off following an ugly news conference before UFC 328 on Saturday.
A bitter and personal exchange escalated even further when Chimaev, despite being held back by UFC security, beckoned Strickland towards him as the pair traded insults, before launching a kick at the American.
As the crowd roared, security and armed police escorted each fighter off stage in separate directions as they continued to hurl expletives at each other.
Tensions have threatened to boil over throughout fight week, with Russian-Emirati middleweight champion Chimaev set to defend his belt against American Strickland in Newark, New Jersey on Saturday.
It is not uncommon for UFC fighters to insult each other in the hope of building hype around a fight, but Strickland has been particularly volatile while addressing Chimaev – launching derogatory and racist comments which have attacked his religion and heritage.
Last week, Strickland threatened to shoot Chimaev if the 32-year-old and his team-mates confronted him in the build-up to the fight.
In response, the UFC has hired extra security to protect each fighter and reportedly kept the pair in separate hotels.
Chimaev has been calm and reserved during fight week, despite Strickland’s derogatory comments, but was animated during the news conference.
Before the pair had even taken their seats, security had to intervene and, as Strickland continued to goad Chimaev, he responded with ugly comments about childhood trauma which the American has spoken about in the past.
“You’re making fun of child abuse,” replied Strickland, who followed up with further expletives.
When asked if he enjoyed the bitter rivalry between Chimaev and Strickland, UFC president Dana White – who was stood between the pair – responded “it is what it is”.
He previously described it as a “top-three” heated rivalry of all time in the UFC.
Despite the offensive comments from Strickland and Chimaev, it is unlikely the UFC will take any disciplinary action with White a vocal supporter of free speech.
“I think probably the most important free speech to protect is hate speech,” White said last year.
“Because when a government or a certain person can come out and determine saying ‘this is hate speech’, it’s a very slippery slope and it’s dangerous, in my opinion.”
Strickland did not appear to be hurt by Chimaev’s kick and afterwards wrote “exactly what I expected a coward to do”, on social media.
It is unclear whether the New Jersey Athletic Control Board will punish Chimaev for the altercation.
Michael Gates is basing his run for California attorney general on his decade-long reign as Huntington Beach’s top lawman.
When we met at a Starbucks a block away from City Hall, he rattled off his hometown’s bona fides: A drop in crime and homelessness. Tourists from across the world. A thriving Main Street. A small-town feel “almost like the Midwest.”
His biggest obstacle in trying to convince voters that he should replace Rob Bonta, besides his Republican Party membership? Um, Huntington Beach.
Their antics made Huntington Beach a national laughingstock — but Gates and his pals so far have had the last giggle.
They ran as a slate in two elections that transformed the City Council from a narrow Democratic majority in 2022 to an all-Republican body in an era when Orange County is turning more and more purple. The takeover became a sensation among California conservatives looking for victories in a state where Democrats maintain a supermajority in both legislative chambers and have held every statewide office for 15 years.
“We’ve morphed into this epicenter of fighting back,” said Mayor Casey McKeon, a third-generation Huntington Beach resident who’s up for reelection this year. “We are the model every city can follow. If I were running for state office, I’d run it on that.”
That’s exactly what the architects of MAGA-by-the-Sea plan to do this November.
The Huntington Beach red revolution now includes conservative commentator Steve Hilton, who launched his campaign for governor last spring near the city’s world-famous pier — even though he lives in Silicon Valley.
Hilton told me he has long loved Huntington Beach because it reminds him of Brighton, the seaside British town where he grew up. His affection for Surf City deepened the more he talked to people like Gates and Strickland, who sold him on their vision to stick it to Sacramento.
“There’s such a joy about it — it’s a place where it’s well-run and clean and orderly,” said the candidate, who has consistently led in polls as his Democratic opponents cannibalize each other’s share of the vote. “When I was thinking where to launch my campaign, it made sense [in Huntington Beach], because it felt like home.”
Then-City Council candidates Tony Strickland, left, and Gracey Van Der Mark attend a “meet and greet” event in Huntington Beach in 2022.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Better not tell anyone in H.B. you’re an immigrant, Steve!
California Republican Party Chairwoman Corrin Rankin is confident the Huntington Beach crew can win.
“What happened there proves that conservative leadership works,” she said. “Currently, we have a former mayor of San Francisco who’s the governor. You look at the contrast of how each of those cities are.”
Strickland, who is Hilton’s campaign chair, swears that he and his former colleagues didn’t plan to take their crusade statewide, but “when you do a great job, other opportunities present themselves.”
“I think California is on the wrong track — most think that,” he added. If his team pulls off a November sweep — governor, attorney general, Assembly seat and the voter ID proposition — “it would be known as the major turnaround in the Golden State that made it golden again.”
Does drinking Surf City’s water grant you magical powers, too?
It’s easy to dismiss what Strickland, Gates and the others have created as a lucky local run that’s about to crash into the reality of running statewide as a Republican. Even in Huntington Beach, residents tired of perpetual culture wars rejected two ballot measures last year seeking to give the City Council more control over a municipal library system that Van Der Mark long claimed was essentially providing pornography to children.
But if there’s one thing I’ve learned while tracking H.B.’s ever-aggrieved conservatives for a quarter century, it’s to never underestimate them — the more you do, the more they fume, the more they scheme. They plan with the discipline of a Dodgers World Series team and brawl like hometown hero and mixed martial arts legend Tito Ortiz, who was on the council for a few months in 2021 before stepping down because he said the job “wasn’t working for me.”
Gates, 51, is so Huntington Beach that he looks it: Bull-necked. Blue-eyed. Bro-y. No-nonsense haircut. An aw-shucks countenance barely hiding a righteous anger that seeks to pile-drive progressive California into submission.
“I know what it looks like to be from a working-class family, a hardworking family, and find it very difficult to make ends meet,” said Gates, noting that his Irish American parents sometimes had to grab food and diapers for their children from the St. Bonaventure Catholic Church pantry. “So frankly, let’s take control away from the government and give control back to the working-class people.”
Fullerton College political science professor Jodi Balma teaches her students about Huntington Beach as an example of how “the power of a slate can really work” in an era of polarization. But when I asked if she thought the Surf City insurgents could upend California politics, the professor quickly said, “No.”
A majority of California voters think the state is heading in the wrong direction, and the number of undecided voters in elections ranging from California governor to the L.A. mayor’s race is putting the fear of God into Democratic leaders. But how deluded can Strickland and company be to think that aligning themselves more with President Trump — who just endorsed Hilton — is a winning strategy in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly 2 to 1? And propping up Surf City — a wealthy beach town so full of itself that it makes Santa Monica seem as humble as Santa Ana — as the last, best hope to save California?
Hilton demurred when I asked if he agreed with everything his pals on the City Council have done over the years. “I’m not there, so I don’t see the day-to-day operation,” was his weak salsa reply.
Gates was more forthright.
“I think probably everybody in city leadership would admit the library thing got out of control,” he said. By then, Gates was working for the Department of Justice in Washington as a deputy assistant attorney general in the civil rights division, resigning after just 10 months because he said he missed home.
Sand art at Huntington City Beach in 2020.
(Raul Roa / Los Angeles Times)
Gates talked a good talk for most of our hourlong conversation. He and Hilton are pushing especially hard for Latino voters — they “can save California because they understand that new leadership can turn the state around.”
But for everything Gates said that might appeal to a frustrated Democrat like me, his Huntington Beach braggadocio continually won out.
He alternately hailed his own political astuteness (“You be patient, bide your time, be disciplined, keep your mouth shut. The long game will win.”), brought up transgender issues (“I want to protect our young girls. I want to stop all the mutilation surgeries happening in hospitals to our young people.”) and inveighed against out-of-control Democrats (“[Californians are] abused. And honestly, we’re pissed off. We’re getting really mad.”).
Most of all, Gates proclaimed time and time again just how darn special Huntington Beach is.
“We love our freedoms. We love flying our American flags,” he said. “We love our beach. I don’t know, it’s a different culture here.”
Taylor, 35, hit .186 with a .256 on-base percentage, two homers, 12 RBIs and two steals in a combined 58 games with the Dodgers and Angels last season.
He batted .248 with a .327 on-base percentage, 110 homers and 443 RBIs during a 12-year career. Taylor made the NL All-Star team while playing for the Dodgers in 2021.
Strickland, 37, went 1-2 with a 3.27 ERA and one save in 19 relief appearances for the Angels last season. He has a 26-25 record with a 3.39 ERA and 30 saves in 499 career major league appearances, all in relief.
