Sean Strickland doesn’t give a f—k about your feelings.
The undisputed Middleweight champion is constantly on Twitter, offering up his hottest of hot takes on everything from Ian Garry’s marriage to homosexuality to gun violence to … pretty much every hot button issue Strickland can come up with that gets a rise out of his fellow fighters or the general MMA community alike. If you don’t like it … TOUGH!
But, how about when the shoe is on the other foot?
Top-ranked contender Dricus Du Plessis gave Strickland a taste of his own medicine at a recent press conference, going below the belt and referencing Strickland’s traumatic childhood and abusive father in his trash talk. Strickland was visibly shaken, and shortly afterward, the two came to blows while in attendance at UFC 296 (Dana’s fault!).
Former UFC double champion Henry Cejudo is unimpressed with Strickland’s attitude. “Triple C” sees weakness, and he thinks it’s lame that Strickland is throwing punches over trash talk after making plenty of his own comments.
“[Strickland] likes to talk about other people, he likes to talk about other people’s wives,” Cejudo said on his YouTube channel (via Sports Illustrated). “But when somebody brings up something about his past and with his dad, all of a sudden he’s crying. So as cool as Sean Strickland could be – and the funny thing that he could be, he’s also somewhat of a crybaby.”
Cejudo continued, “I was a fan, but the fact now that he’s really bringing it to the fists – like fighting outside of an actual Octagon – lets me know that the dude is just frickin’ emotional … And now when they say something about you when you were a kid, and all this other s—t. And now you get pissed off and you’re the first one throwing blows, you know what that is? That’s a b—ch move.”
Fortunately, Strickland and Du Plessis will get further chances to chat and scrap, hopefully in a more organized manner. The two are booked as the headlining bout for the UFC 297 pay-per-view (PPV) event, scheduled for Sat., Jan. 20, 2023 at ScotiaBank Arena in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
We’ll have to wait and see if the mental warfare affects the fight itself.