Chael Sonnen said he doesn’t know if Sean Strickland was exaggerating when he said he would shoot UFC rival Khamzat Chimaev. 

Chimaev will make the first defense of his UFC Middleweight Championship against the former champion, Strickland, this weekend at UFC 328. And, as the fight game entails, the two had gotten stuck into the verbal back-and-forth well before their fight had even been confirmed. 

Inevitably as the threats got a little more real a question turned to what would happen if they met in real life, to which Strickland said he would shoot Chimaev. But while many have taken that to be fighters’ hyperbole, Hall of Famer Sonnen said to Ariel Helwani that he is not entirely convinced that is the case. 

“By the way, I don’t know that he was kidding around,” he said. “He is somebody that practices his Second Amendment rights, he does have a concealed carry, he is trained with a weapon. I don’t know that Sean was joking but I don’t like the theme of that.”

In any case, Sonnen is not a fan of the way things took a turn in the build-up, with Chimaev and Strickland limited in what they can do ahead of this weekend and under increased security. 

“I wish that Strickland wouldn’t have said he was going to shoot him. Because that does stop the playfulness,” he said. “I just feel like we escalated a little heavily.”