UFC Middleweight Champion Khamzat Chimaev says Sean Strickland brought a gun to a training session following their verbal confrontation.

Both fighters were training partners at Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas after which they had fallen out. Strickland previously accused Chimaev of being a “bad teammate” who intentionally tried to rough up less experienced fighters. Chimaev recalled how he felt Strickland had disrespected fighters from Chechnya during a group chat, something Sean said was a misunderstanding. Chimaev then revealed Strickland came to the gym with a gun in fear that he would attack him. Strickland recently said he wants to face Anthony Hernandez next with the hope of getting a title shot against Chimaev, as the pair have history.

“When we used to train together, he was normal. Well, one time I got angry with him and the next day he was walking around the gym with a gun, he thought I’d attack him. We had a group chat for our gym, there was one guy from Chechnya in it and (Strickland) wrote something like, ‘I thought all Chechen’s are strong?’ And I wrote him back, ‘You’re an American chicken, I’ll beat you up. He later said that I misunderstood him, that’s all that really happened. I spoke English badly at that time and I couldn’t tell you exactly what happened, he said something about Chechnya or something, so I immediately attacked him just in case,” Chimaev said