Want to get submitted atop a mountain during a ski trip? Run into Sean Strickland while he snowboards and the former champ will happily tap you out.
Sean Strickland is such a man of the people that he will happily play-fight with fans anywhere, any time.
Sure, there’s a 50/50 chance your gym spar turns into a concussion-inducing breakdown. But catch him snowboarding on a ski hill and he will tap you relatively gently before shaking your hand. That’s the conclusion we’ve made after seeing two instances of Strickland grappling with random people on the slopes.
The newest comes via TMZ Sports, and shows Strickland grappling a random fan. It’s friendly enough that they shake hands before going at it.
“All right dawg, let’s f—ing go … til you quit, motherf—er!” Strickland declares before mocking his opponent’s stance and slapping him upside the head. “You trying to s— me off or something?”
The guy is smart enough not to start throwing punches. Instead he goes for a takedown attempt that Strickland stuffs. He then puts his head in a front choke that he never really escapes. “Tarzan” holds him in a front headlock for a bit before switching to back control and working a face crank that taps the guy.
“Always a good time on the mountain!!!!” Strickland wrote on Instagram. “Yall need to stop challenging me lmao!!!!!”
Two weeks earlier, another clip came out of Strickland using his MMA skills in the snow.
“Well @boderayy you’re a way better snow boarder than me but you’re a way worse wrestler,” he wrote on a clip of him dogwalking some kid next to a gondola. “Man was trying to fight me all weekend lol!! Respect.”
All these shenanigans take me back to the early days of early 2000 where UFC fighters were regularly putting rear naked chokes on people. That ended after a couple of champs got sued by opportunists claiming neck and back injuries. So watch out, Strickland! Unlike the UFC, it’s usually the guy that loses the fight that makes all the money in a court case.