That’s according to former UFC middleweight champion Robert Whittaker.
UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland will make his first 185-pound title defense against No. 2-ranked division contender Dricus Du Plessis atop the UFC 297 pay-per-view (PPV) event, scheduled for Sat., Jan. 20, 2023 at ScotiaBank Arena in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
It was a “stupid” seating assignment that only an “a—hole” like Dana White could arrange.
After a brief war of words, Strickland dove over his seat and attacked Du Plessis, leading to a wild crowd brawl that was not only caught on camera, but also shared to social media by the promotion — despite White’s insistence that he frowns on that sort of extracurricular activity.
That’s probably why former middleweight champion Robert Whittaker is calling it “staged.”
“I thought it was staged, mate, honestly,” Whittaker said on his MMArcade Podcast. “Because it was weird. It was weird the way it happened. You saw the way Strickland was like, ‘Move aside, please.’ Makes sense, but then he jumps in like WWE style. The way he was punching, the way he was kind of like, I don’t know, fake punching to the back of Dricus. Maybe it was just for entertainment, and which case, you can’t really give him anything for it. I don’t know. It’s a bit silly. He’s the champ. It was a weird little scuffle, I am gonna say.”
UFC fighters like to “push the boundaries” if it means “good media.”
Whittaker also took exception to Strickland’s comments at the seasonal press conference.
“I also heard him talking smack about me in the press conference,” Whittaker said. “I don’t think it was smack talk, to be honest. He just off-commented how — downplayed my abilities. I don’t expect him to pump tires, to be honest, and yeah, I don’t think I’m as one-dimensional as he says. I think my blitz is a strong part of my game, but I got other tricks.”
Hopefully we’ll get to see some of those tricks against Paulo Costa at UFC 299.
“It was nothing really. I’m not gonna say I like him but I don’t hate him because he’s kind of holistically against everybody, you know what I mean?” Whittaker continued. “He’s holistically rude. He’s not singling out certain people or genres or races or colors, he’s just kinda tellin’ off everyone. Being rude to everyone. I don’t hate that. But I don’t know, I think that fight looked a little staged. Staged on Strickland’s behalf, I don’t think Dricus got the memo.”
He didn’t get to read the memo, but he did get to pull the trigger.