Controversial influencer Andrew Tate has more important things to do than throw hands with UFC star Sean Strickland.
Ahead of his shocking upset against Israel Adesanya last year, Strickland absolutely shredded Tate, calling the former kickboxing world champion a “con artist” after Tate allegedly pretended to be a webcam model to scam unsuspecting men out of their money.
“Here’s the thing about Andrew Tate, as young men I could see why you guys look up to him because you are moralless men,” Strickland said on the Full Send podcast. “You have no values, you have no positive male role models. So, you latch onto a piece of sh*t like Tate, who has money, who has women.
“To see the way he talked with no remorse, it wasn’t, ‘You know what, man? I did something so morally wrong. I took advantage of men, I took money from men,’ it was like, ‘No, f*ck them. I’m a con artist, I’m a piece of sh*t.’ So, Andrew Tate, you guys, if you want to look up to a guy, look up to a guy like Jordan Peterson. He understands masculinity, honesty, how to be a f*cking man, but I’m telling you, Andrew Tate, he’s not your messiah. He would turn you out for a dollar. He’s a f*cking pimp, he’s a whore” (h/t MMA Knockout).
Andrew Tate has more important matters to tend to
As is usually the case with people Strickland doesn’t like, ‘Tarzan’ laid down a challenge, inviting Tate to come spar with him. Tate recently responded to the ex-middleweight champ’s offer, noting that he has more important things to handle at the moment.
“Everyone’s trying to drag me into a fight all the time,” Tate said in a video via the Big G Club YouTube channel. “I could spar. I could fight and make 10 to 20 million, or whatever. It’s not worth my time, but that’s the money that would be generated. I don’t think they understand. If they actually paid any attention to the life I’m living or the things I’ve just said, I’m already in a fight.
“When you’re fighting a guy on the street, you don’t ask some other random halfway through, ‘Hey, you wanna fight?’ I’m in a fight and I don’t think the fight is going to end anytime soon and I have very little interest in trying to do any other kind of fights for entertainment. I think my fight is larger and bigger than some stupid boxing match or sparring competition to get views on the internet.”
The “fight” that Tate mentions is likely a reference to his 2023 indictment on a slew of charges, including rape, human trafficking, and forming an organized crime group to sexually exploit women. Tate and three other individuals — including his brother — were arrested in December 2022 amid an investigation claiming that he had lured in women by promising them a romantic relationship and then forced them to create explicit content for websites.
Tate and his brother were released from custody three months later and placed under house arrest, which expired in August 2023. The investigation is ongoing and it will likely be years before Tate faces trial.