UFC 328 will be headlined by Khamzat Chimaev making his first defense as the middleweight champion against former champion Sean Strickland at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. on Saturday night.

Chimaev will enter as the heavy favorite, with his odds shifting from -525 to -550 at BetMGM by Friday. However, the money was largely split, with Chimaev backed by 51%, while Strickland had drawn 89% of the total bets at +400.

The UFC allowed both men to do the traditional ceremonial faceoff Thursday evening before security pulled both off the stage after Chimaev (15-0 MMA) kicked Strickland (30-7 MMA) in the leg, marking a dark climax to a chaotic week of separation before the fight.

UFC CEO Dana White said the rivalry has bad blood, which has made it a top-three rivalry in the promotion’s history.

Hostility aside, Chimaev enters the fight with four submission wins in nine UFC matches. Strickland earned the title shot off a third-round TKO defeat of Anthony Hernandez at UFC Houston in February.

The fight is set as a five-rounder, marking Chimaev’s first title defense while Strickland attempts to regain the title after relinquishing it to Dricus du Plessis in January of 2024 at UFC 297.

The co-main event sees a re-booked flyweight title fight between Joshua Van and Tatsuro Taira. The pair were supposed to meet at UFC 327 last month in Miami, Fla., but Van sustained an undisclosed minor injury that shifted the fight to this event.

Van (16-2 MMA) became the new UFC flyweight champion in December at UFC 323, as an arm injury to then-champion Alexandre Pantoja ended the fight after just 26 seconds. He is the first fighter born this century to become a UFC champion, while Taira (18-1 MMA) aims to be the first UFC champion from Japan with a win over Van, who is from Myanmar.

Taira opened as the -175 favorite but has seen those odds shift a bit to -160. He has been backed by 52% of the fight money, while Van has drawn 61% of the bets at +135.

The main card gets underway on Paramount+ at 9 p.m. ET.

OTHER MAIN CARD FIGHTS

–Alexander Volkov (39-11) vs. Waldo Cortes-Acosta (17-2), heavyweight

Volkov opened as the -190 favorite but has been lightly backed with 33% of the total bets and 44% of the money. Meanwhile, Cortes-Acosta has seen his odds shift from +155 to +125, setting this up as one of the most tightly-contested fights on the card.

–Sean Brady (18-2) vs. Joaquin Buckley (21-7), welterweight

This is a battle of highly-ranked contenders who are both coming off losses — Brady to Michael Morales and Buckley to 38-year-old Kamaru Usman.

Buckley has been a very popular underdog, garnering 73% of the total bets and 70% of the money while shifting from +155 to +140. Brady is now -170 after opening as the -185 favorite.

–King Green (34-17-1) vs. Jeremy Stephens (29-22), lightweight

Stephens failed to make weight, coming in at 160 points. It’s the second miss at 145 pounds for Stephens, who hasn’t won a UFC fight in eight years. He returned from a 1-2 stint in the PFL to lose to Mason Jones last year, and will now be fighting for a 30% reduction in pay Saturday night.

Both fighters are 39, but Green is coming off wins over Lance Gibson Jr. and an upset of Daniel Zellhuber.

Green is one of the heaviest favorites on the card, sitting at -400 on Friday while backed by 62% of the money. Stephens’ +310 underdog odds has drawn 72% of the total bets.

–Field Level Media

Ben Crane rolled in eight birdies on his way to setting the pace on the first day of the Insperity Invitational on Friday at The Woodlands (Texas) Country Club.

Crane’s 7-under-par 65 was enough for a one-shot edge over Shane Bertsch, Boo Weekley, Australia’s Richard Green and Thailand’s Thongchai Jaidee.

Another stroke back at 67 were Steven Alker of New Zealand, Ernie Els of South Africa, Rory Sabbatini of Slovakia and South Koreans Charlie Wi and Y.E. Yang.

Crane, a five-time winner on the PGA Tour, turned 50 in March and is hunting for his first win on the PGA Tour Champions. He finished runner-up at the Senior PGA Championship last month.

Crane birdied six of his first 10 holes Friday before cooling off. After his lone bogey at the par-3 14th, where he missed the green off the tee, Crane birdied the next two holes, including a lengthy putt at the par-3 16th.

Bertsch, 56, prevailed once on the PGA Tour Champions back in 2020 and is vying for a return to the winner’s circle. He only got into this week’s field as the second alternate.

“I’ve been in this position this year, unfortunately, just because of, you know, I’m not the greatest player last year, so I’ve been hanging around as first alternate a couple weeks,” Bertsch said. “… You could have a chance to get in and be out all of a sudden if you’re not around (at the course). So it’s kind of nerve-wracking. But it was nice to get in.”

Bertsch played the back nine first and made four birdies with one bogey, then reached the green in two at the par-5 first hole and eagled for a nice bump up the leaderboard. He added one last birdie at the par-5 sixth.

Stewart Cink, the defending champion and winner of the season’s first two majors, opened with a 4-under 68.

–Field Level Media

Shane van Gisbergen has work to do in the Finger Lakes region of New York this weekend when the NASCAR Cup Series holds its second race on a road course in 2026, venturing to Watkins Glen International in Watkins Glen, N.Y.

Nicknamed SVG for the sake of all the NASCAR announcers and fans who discuss his incredible work with the pedals on the snaking layouts, he finds himself riding 19th in the standings, winless in his No. 97 Chevrolet that he turns left and right for Trackhouse Racing.

It’s the preponderance of right turns that have led to his success since he exploded onto the Cup scene with his stunning win at the Chicago Street Course on July 2, 2023.

The race ended with the lamp posts glowing alongside Michigan Avenue, nearly in darkness, and while van Gisbergen has not really been in the dark this season, the results have not been illuminating.

A native of Auckland, New Zealand, SVG will turn 37 on Saturday, and he would love nothing more than to repeat at the Glen and leap over a number of fellow winless drivers in the standings.

But it won’t be gifted to him.

In 2025, driving the No. 88, used this season by his teammate and rookie road-course ace Connor Zilisch, van Gisbergen beat Chris Buescher to win the Cup race in August. The day before, Zilisch wrecked SVG and earned the checkers in the then-Xfinity Series race.

However, the 19-year-old Zilisch caught his foot in the window netting as he climbed from his car in Victory Lane and crashed hard to the ground, breaking his collarbone and requiring surgery but returned 13 days later at Daytona.

van Gisbergen, whose six Cup victories have all come on road courses, warned this week that more danger awaits in upstate New York, referring to a new barrier installed in Turn 5 at the famous Carousel.

“The way that wall is angled, it’s going to grab cars and spit them out back into the middle of the track,” said van Gisbergen, who is entered in all three series’ races this weekend. “This setup, especially how close it gets to the racing line, feels like a trap.”

In the season’s only road-course race so far at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, he tried to chase down and pass leader Tyler Reddick but could not do it, only leading two laps while Reddick paced the way on 58 circuits en route to his third straight win to start 2026.

van Gisbergen has posted only one other finish inside the top 10: a sixth at Atlanta the week before.

Not much has gone well in the last four races for him since running 11th at Martinsville last month: He has not finished better than his 17th-place effort last weekend at Texas Motor Speedway, where Chase Elliott took the checkers.

SVG (+125) and his teenaged teammate Zilisch (+285) come in as heavy favorites, according to DraftKings. Combined, they create a gap between third-favorite Reddick (+750) that’s as large as the distance from Watkins Glen to the Big Apple.

“I thought I was being pretty normal when I fell off my car, but clearly my normal is a little bit different,” said Zilisch, who also won the Xfinity race in 2024 at the 2.45-mile course. “I don’t think I’ll be too flashy, unless I win on Sunday.”

There’s a pretty decent chance that Trackhouse will be represented in the Glen’s Victory Lane.

–Field Level Media