Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Middleweight champion, Sean Strickland, is four days removed from being completely shutout at UFC 312 by 185-pound kingpin, Dricus du Plessis, via unanimous decision from inside Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia (watch highlights).
And mixed martial arts (MMA) fans are still wondering the reason(s) Strickland performed so poorly in his “to the death!” rematch with du Plessis.
Strickland recently hopped on his social media to respond to his head coach, Eric Nicksick, criticizing his performance and, in the process, revealed a laundry list of problems he was dealing with before the fight.
“Man, that entire fight camp was just a struggle, like it was a f—king struggle. And guys, we all have excuses as to why we didn’t win or why we won, and we shouldn’t have won. We all f—king have excuses, and they don’t f—king matter,” Strickland said. “This is not an excuse, but that entire camp was just a struggle of, ‘I’m good, I’m good.’ Knowing [I wasn’t good.] I was in Columbia, about eight weeks out, seven weeks out, getting stem cells on the broken bone. Again, the bone healed fine. Not an excuse.
“It just kind of weighs in the back of your head,” Strickland added. “I was training with that [Reinier de Ridder] guy, this submission guy, and he hit me with a whizzer,” Strickland continued. “[My bone] was already broken. And dude, I thought my arm f—king snapped, and I thought I gotta go to Columbia, like this is f—ked, but all camp, this is just in the back of your head. And like, you just keep telling yourself, I’m f—king good, and I think this is what all men do.”
“Whether it be, you know, the staph infection, the broken arm, having to get a visa approved a week out and being unable to get cornerman out there. This entire camp was like a struggle of, ‘I’m not good,’ but I look in the mirror and say, sack up.”
Even with the revelation that Strickland was dealing with a lot inside (and outside) of the Octagon, the loud-mouth fighter still gave props to du Plessis.
“I’m taking nothing away from Dricus,” Strickland concluded. “He came there, fought his ass off, f—king broke my nose. Like, dude, f—king, hell yeah. Man, like, hats off. You felt like a f—king man.”
Maybe — given the list of things he had to overcome — the fighters and even his coach can give him a break.
Then again, maybe not.
To checkout UFC’s upcoming schedule of events click here.