“I probably shouldn’t say this and no disrespect to Jack he’s a warrior… but I feel like I didn’t even try this fight.”
Sean Strickland might have got the W on Saturday night, but the controversial UFC middleweight is treating the victory as one of his worst performances to date.
Strickland says he fought like a ‘pansy’ against Jack Hermansson in the UFC Vegas 47 main event and, despite cruising to a decision victory, says he let the pressure get to him on the night and treated the fight as a ‘low-level sparring match’.
I probably shouldn’t say this and no disrespect to Jack he’s a warrior… but I feel like I didn’t even try this fight.. Like I was treating it like a low level sparring match.. very disappointing… let the pressure get to me… won’t happen again..
— Sean Strickland (@SStricklandMMA) February 6, 2022
“I probably shouldn’t say this and no disrespect to Jack he’s a warrior… but I feel like I didn’t even try this fight.. Like I was treating it like a low level sparring match.. very disappointing… let the pressure get to me… won’t happen again..” Strickland, who beat Hermansson via split decision, posted on social media following the fight.
The 30-year-old Millenia MMA product blamed his lackluster performance on an awkward pre-fight conversation he had with the top UFC brass, whom he referred to as ‘the fancy folk in the suits’.
“I get a lot of fancy f—rs wearing suits, and they come up to me and they start talking about title fights and things of that nature,” he said. “You hear that all the time, and you start thinking, ‘Do I really want to risk getting knocked out when I can go for a title fight?’
“So I let the fancy folk in the suits throw me off a little bit. But it won’t happen again.”
Despite not fighting at his best on Saturday, Strickland believes he should be next in line to fight the winner of Israel Adesanya vs. Robert Whittaker 2 for the undisputed middleweight title. The No. 7-ranked middleweight is now on a six-fight win streak and knocking on the door of title contention.