Sean Strickland wasn’t too pleased about seeing tributes to UFC Hall-of-Famer Stephan Bonnar, who recently passed away.
A few days before Christmas, UFC Hall-of-Famer Stephan Bonnar passed away suddenly at age 45 due to supposed heart complications while at work. As expected, tributes poured in as people within the MMA community shared their memory of “The American Psycho.”
While it was a nice, heartwarming gesture, UFC middleweight Sean Strickland didn’t see it that way. The outspoken fighter instead called out those who paid their social media tributes in a short Instagram video he posted.
“Stephan Bonnar just died and like my Instagram feed, Google is flooded with pictures of people like, ‘Hey, this is me and Bonnar training, we are buddies we used to hang out back in the day,’ like I’m going to post a picture about him and get double tap likes,” he said (transcript by MMA News). “But man, the Stephan Bonnar I knew was f–ng nuts.”
“He was addicted to opioids… he got arrested, got kicked out of a hospital because they wouldn’t give him opioids, his gym went under during Covid…and you know me, I’m an asshole, I’m not going to post a picture and say, ‘rest in peace,’ I’m an asshole.”
What seemed to irk Strickland was the tributes from people who “weren’t there” for the beleaguered former fighter, whose struggles became public towards the last year of his life.
“But you f–ing people that, like, after he died you post pictures of him in support and all this, like when this man was losing his shit, where were you? And I’m not saying you had to be there for him.
“But you weren’t there for him then; don’t be there for him now because now he doesn’t need it.”
Strickland also made controversial statements about Ronda Rousey, who admitted contemplating taking her own life in 2016 after losing to Holly Holm.