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Sean Strickland Opens Up About Neo-Nazi Childhood Struggles

UFC middleweight Sean Strickland has been known to push the envelope from time to time and has opened up about some controversial childhood memories. Sean Strickland last competed against Uriah Hall at UFC Vegas 33 in July. After the contest, the decision victory expanded the winning streak of “Tarzan” to five. En route to victory, […]

Continue Reading Sean Strickland Opens Up About Neo-Nazi Childhood Struggles at MMA News.

UFC middleweight Sean Strickland has been known to push the envelope from time to time and has opened up about some controversial childhood memories.

Sean Strickland last competed against Uriah Hall at UFC Vegas 33 in July. After the contest, the decision victory expanded the winning streak of “Tarzan” to five. En route to victory, Strickland pushed a pace Hall struggled to keep up with. Following the triumph on the judge’s scorecards, Strickland looked to be getting his big break when the company was aiming for him to face a former champion.

Sean Strickland scoring the victory at UFC Vegas 33

The rising 185-pound fighter’s eccentric personality has consistently made headlines. Before Luke Rockhold and Strickland were scheduled to appear in the Octagon, they exchanged expletive-filled rants. In addition, the streaking middleweight went so far as to threaten Rockhold’s safety, which has raised eyebrows to a certain extent.

While Strickland was expected to face former UFC champion Luke Rockhold at UFC 268, the American Kickboxing Academy member pulled out of the contest due to a back injury. Now sitting at #7 in the official rankings, Strickland’s menacing teenage years are behind him.

Sean Strickland Opens Up About Troubled Childhood

Speaking on a recent episode of Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour, Sean Strickland shed some light on a few of his childhood traumas. The middleweight details growing pains that amounted to being kicked out of school for hate crimes.

“I was really fucking angry,” Strickland said in regard to his abusive childhood. “I was so angry I actually went through this weird neo-Nazi, white supremacist phase when I was younger and I got kicked out of school for hate crimes, like all this crazy shit. I was angry and I had a lot of fucked-up influences in my life that it felt so good to fucking hate something. I would walk down the street with like a knife or a rock hoping to kill somebody. And when I started training I’m like man, you’re just fucking angry.”

The outspoken Strickland admits that he was in a very dark place during his grade school years. While “Tarzan” acknowledges that influences played a role in his behavior, the 24-3 professional finds himself taken aback by his former character.

“My grandfather was like this big piece of shit,” Strickland continued. “When you’re a kid you don’t see that, you hero worship. He kinda just filled your head with crazy shit. You’re in seventh grade spouting off about Nazis, you don’t even know what the fuck that means. But you hear it from someone you look up to and that identity consumed me. Drawing swastikas walking to school, like I didn’t know what the fuck that was. Later my grandfather died and I kinda resented him for it. When you’re racist, you don’t get ahead in life. You’re fucked, man. There’s no privilege from being racist, so I resented him for a majority of my life.”

Growing up in California, in an abusive household, the 185-pound athlete reveals ignorance played a role in his childhood trauma. With a notable impact from his grandfather, the rising UFC star divulged that he harbored resentment toward his deceased family member. Despite being shaped by his grandfather’s Neo-Nazi views at an early age, Strickland is now separated from that dark chapter of his childhood.

What do you make of Sean Strickland’s turbulent upbringing?

Continue Reading Sean Strickland Opens Up About Neo-Nazi Childhood Struggles at MMA News.

Coincidence Much? Chael Sonnen Returning to Middleweight After “Fight Night” Bout With Shogun Rua

(Referee Yves Lavigne scrambles to clean up the pool of Vaseline he dumped on the canvas to turn Sonnen’s perfectly-timed spinning backfist into a subject of parody at UFC 148. Photo via Getty.)

We are shocked, Potato Nation. SHOCKED WE TELLS YOU.

For reasons that are not yet understandable despite being clearly explained to us, P4P G.O.A.T., multi-division UFC champion, possessor of the arms and the charms, the hefty lefty, the flyin hawaiian, the Juggernaut, bitch, Chael Phinneus Sonnen Esq., recently announced that he will be returning to the middleweight division after he defeats Mauricio “Shogun” Rua at Fight Night: Sonnen vs. Shogun on August 17th.

It’s a goddamn travesty is what it is. As we all know, Sonnen was last “defeated” by light heavyweight “champion” Jon Jones via technical knock out (emphasis on “technical”) at UFC 159 in a fight that he would have undoubtedly won had referee Keith Peterson not been in Jones’ pocket and prematurely stopped the fight. So discouraged by the evident corruption at 205, Sonnen broke the news of his middleweight return on UFC Tonight yesterday:

I’ve moved to Southern California and am training at Reign with Mark Munoz. My new contract, which is a five-fight deal, was finalized today.

I’ll return to middleweight after beating Shogun. There are two guys I want to get matched up with: Vitor Belfort, because he’s awesome and he’s on an incredible roll. And Wanderlei Silva, who I’ve heard is going back to middleweight. The landscape has completely changed. I’ve got a new contract and I’m returning to the weight class.

(Referee Yves Lavigne scrambles to clean up the pool of Vaseline he dumped on the canvas to turn Sonnen’s perfectly-timed spinning backfist into a subject of parody at UFC 148. Photo via Getty.)

We are shocked, Potato Nation. SHOCKED WE TELLS YOU.

I’ve moved to Southern California and am training at Reign with Mark Munoz. My new contract, which is a five-fight deal, was finalized today.

I’ll return to middleweight after beating Shogun. There are two guys I want to get matched up with: Vitor Belfort, because he’s awesome and he’s on an incredible roll. And Wanderlei Silva, who I’ve heard is going back to middleweight. The landscape has completely changed. I’ve got a new contract and I’m returning to the weight class.

“To those of you who think I am only doing this because Anderson Silva has finally been dethroned,” Sonnen continued whilst one-arming a 90 pound dumbbell and smoking a corncob pipe, “I will remind you that I am still up 5 rounds to 2 on that chickenshit.”

In even more shocking news, Chael Sonnen apparently respects (most) Brazilians now *vomits*. First he declared that “Rua seems like a really great guy” and now he’s calling Vitor Belfort “awesome.” Marriage has truly revealed some cracks in his grizzly exterior, but REGARDLESS, who would you prefer to see “The American Gangster” take on after he finishes putting a spanking on Rua?

–J. Jones

[VIDEO] Alan Belcher Rallies for Chris Weidman, Accidently Proves Jorge Guimaraes’ Point

With Vitor Belfort now set to fight Jon Jones at UFC 152, Alan Belcher was left without an opponent for UFC 153 in Rio. Many of us began to speculate as to who the UFC would call in to replace Vitor Belfort in a fight that had possible title implications. Nah, I’m just kidding, we were all way too busy talking about bitchassness, trolling your way into title shots and over-saturation to worry about Alan Belcher. Let’s get back to the real issues of today.

Not so fast. Alan Belcher released a video blog yesterday to discuss the whole Jon Jones saga. Interestingly enough, Belcher first discloses that he won’t be fighting at UFC 153 because he wants to let a back injury he suffered while training heal. In his words:

Rewind a little bit: Three or four weeks back, I had a real bad back problem. I went to the doctor, found out that I had a spinal fracture, so that put me out for three weeks. I didn’t bend my back, I just kept it straight. I’m like “I’m just going to get the rest I need to make this fight happen and push through it.” I was getting back in there training, and it took me a whole week to get my mind wrapped back around it, but I was like “This is a huge fight, I’m going to do it,” and there is no way I was going to back out of that fight. Once I started back and I got going, I put a lot of thought into it and I was going full force ahead.

While that speaks volumes about the respect that Belcher has for both his fans and the UFC, that’s not what we’re focusing on now. Rather, let’s focus on who Alan Belcher wants when he’s ready to return to action. Aside from the standard training montages and shots of Belcher’s John Belushi tattoo (that’s who that thing is supposed to be, right?), Alan Belcher slips a call out of the middleweight division’s heir apparent, Chris Weidman, into the video. As he puts it:

Chris Weidman, I think that fight makes sense. Do I think he’s the number one contender? I don’t know about that, but I think that he’s definitely up there.

What’s strange about this call out is how out of place it is in the video. Belcher goes from talking about his back to randomly calling out Chris Weidman to immediately switching to his grappling training with pretty much no logical transitions between topics. He then goes on to say that if he was Anderson Silva’s manager, he wouldn’t let Anderson fight guys like him or Chris Weidman because they aren’t big enough names.

The Anderson Silva comments are around the 5:50 mark.

Basically, Belcher says he wants to fight Chris Weidman, but wouldn’t blame Anderson Silva for turning down a fight with the winner, because Silva deserves to be fighting big name guys like Jon Jones. Unrelated, Alan, but have you ever heard of Stockholm syndrome?

No one is saying that fighters have to be total assholes to properly promote a fight- the friendly banter between Josh Barnett and Daniel Cormier during Strikeforce: Tate vs. Rousey illustrated this perfectly. But when a guy randomly calls out another fighter and then says that the winner isn’t big enough to deserve a shot at the champion, it makes the call out look meaningless. It kind of makes you see where Anderson Silva manager Jorge Guimaraes was coming from when he called the middleweight division a bunch of amateur kids who can’t promote a fight. After all, if Belcher doesn’t think he deserves a shot at Silva, then why should we?

And that’s too bad, because Belcher vs. Weidman actually sounds like an excellent idea- to me at least. Do you agree? And who ya got?

@SethFalvo

Anderson Silva Camp Thinks UFC Middleweights Are “Amateur Kids,” Rallies for GSP Just to Be Difficult

Anderson Silva, shown modeling for Rolling Stone while showing us his war face.

It’s no secret that the UFC middleweight division is a bit of a mess right now. With Michael Bisping set to fight Brian Stann, Alan Belcher squaring off against Vitor Belfort, Cung Le fighting Rich Franklin and Chris Weidman and Tim Boetsch sitting on the sidelines, it’s no wonder we’re possibly looking at a middleweight tournament to sort this mess out. In theory, the tournament would give Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva plenty of time to go to barbecues and fight Light-Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones while the division sorts itself out. In reality, that will never happen.

With the middleweight division being such a gigantic question mark, it may make sense to just ask someone in Anderson Silva’s camp who they’d like to see him fight next. There’s just one small problem: Anderson Silva’s camp are, how should I say this, pricks. Case in point, here’s what Silva’s manager Jorge Guimaraes said about the possibility of Anderson fighting Chris Weidman, Tim Boetsch and Alan Belcher, who have all recently called out “The Spider” (via Tatame):

Anderson Silva, shown modeling for Rolling Stone while showing us his war face.

“That’s a big joke. Everybody saw that it worked for Chael, and he got really famous with that, and now everybody wants to be on the spotlight. No opponent makes sense for Anderson at this moment*. Unless we do a catchweight against Georges St. Pierre.** They didn’t offer the fight, but he’s the only one that could do a super fight. Anderson has the biggest paycheck in the UFC, and you can’t promote an event with these amateur kids that are coming up now.***”

*Except for, you know, the winners of the fights in the first paragraph that aren’t Le vs. Franklin. Include Weidman and Boetsch on that list, too.

** So, a guy who is undefeated, has won five fights in the UFC’s middleweight division and just destroyed a consensus top middleweight doesn’t make sense, but a welterweight who has been nursing an injury, is booked to unify the UFC Welterweight Championship/Interim Championship in November and will then need time to put on weight for a middleweight fight does. Right, sure, why not? Just tell me, is Chael Sonnen the middleweight champion of this parallel universe you’ve created, or did Travis Lutter manage to knock him out?

Look, the rest of us have given up on this Silva/GSP super fight years ago. With the time it would take for GSP to put on enough weight to fight at 185 – not to mention rehab from an injury in the all-too-likely case he gets hurt in November – it’s safe to assume that ship has sailed. Silva/GSP is pretty much an MMA pipe dream, the same way that Pacquiao vs. Mayweather is one for boxing.

***Didn’t we have this exact same discussion before UFC 117? And then didn’t Chael Sonnen make himself famous by calling out Anderson Silva, like you, you know, just said seconds earlier?

Eh, I give up. If you guys in the comments section have any better ideas for Anderson Silva that don’t involve middleweights, Jon Jones or Georges St. Pierre, let us know.

Previously: Anderson Silva Camp Doesn’t Want Weidman or Lombard, Brings up Luke Rockhold Just to Be Difficult.

Report: Alan Belcher vs. Vitor Belfort Being Targeted for UFC 153 in Rio

(Buy all of the Lombard stock you can….wait…he WHAT?! THEN SELL DAMMIT, SELL!!)

If you are the type of MMA fan that gets his news from CagePotato and only CagePotato, we’d like to thank you for your dedication. Surely you will be rewarded in the afterlife for your selfless sacrifice. At the same time, you’ve more than likely missed out on all of the middleweight calamity that has happened over the past few days, as we deemed it less important than photos of mutilated hands, anti-Mandy Moore smear campaigns, and things of that nature. Clearly we made the right choice, but like we said, we appreciate your dedication.

To sum up the middleweight soap opera in a few sentences, Vitor Belfort tried to call out Chris Weidman, stating both a respect for the fact that Weidman is the top dog at 185 (as we previously stated), and realizing that a win over Weidman would be the easiest path to another shot at Anderson Silva. Weidman promptly denied Belfort, claiming that he had all the respect in the world for the former LHW champ, but simply put, “[he] had his shot” and “right now is my time.”

Meanwhile, in the outskirts of Mississippi, Johnny Cash enthusiast Alan Belcher switched his sights from Michael Bisping to that of Vitor Belfort, which seemed appropriate to us considering that we also called for this matchup. Being that there is no way in hell that a fight between Belfort and Belcher could be anything short of extraordinary, for reals this time, we imagine that most of you agreed with us.

Well, it appears that the dominoes are falling into place like a house of cards, because Belfort and Belcher have verbally agreed to face one another at UFC 153 in Rio, via their respective Twitter accounts.

Hear what was said after the jump.

(Buy all of the Lombard stock you can….wait…he WHAT?! THEN SELL DAMMIT, SELL!!)

Belcher hinted at the fight yesterday with the following:

“My next fight will be the biggest of my career! I may be taking a trip down south, very south. #UFC #belcher4champ“

“I will fight anyone.although I want to fight someone who will challenge me!I want to fight @vitorbelfort in his home country in October #UFC“

To which Vitor responded:

“#belcher lets make this fight #ufcrio in oct 13″

Although there has yet to be an official confirmation from the UFC as of this writing, the fight is listed on both men’s Sherdog pages, and you gotta imagine that this will be booked in the immediate future. Not only is Vitor a huge draw in Brazil, but the aforementioned fireworks are all but guaranteed when these two collide.

Belfort has picked up two straight stoppage wins since ending up on Anderson Silva’s highlight reel at UFC 126, first pummeling Yoshihiro Akiyama at UFC 133, then choking Anthony Johnson’s fat ass right out of the UFC at UFC 142. He was scheduled to face off against long time rival Wanderlei Silva at UFC 147, but suffered a hand injury in training that forced him to pull out from the main event matchup. Currently, oddsmakers have Belfort as a slight favorite over Belcher, but also have the likelihood of “The Phenom” withdrawing due to last minute injury at -1600.

Belcher, on the other hand, has scored four straight victories in the UFC, most recently telling said oddsmakers to go f*ck themselves by pounding out the heavily favored Rousimar Palhares at UFC on FOX 3. Belcher has also finished five of his last 6 opponents inside of the second round, and has not truly lost since getting upset by Jason Day at UFC 83 (yes, I am saying that his UFC 100 fight with Sexyama was a draw at worst. Deal with it.).

UFC 153 is scheduled to go down at the HSBC Arena in Rio De Janeiro on October 13th.

Who do you like for this, Potato Nation?

–J. Jones

Could We Be Looking at a Middleweight #1 Contender Tournament By the End of 2012?

(Our approximate reaction upon hearing the news.)

When we laid out a possible plan to sort out the UFC’s middleweight division earlier this week, we did so by offering several plausible matchups that we felt would most effectively separate the true contenders from the delusional gatekeepers. Some applauded our effort, some offered different, yet equally effective alternatives, and some relied on the time tested effectiveness of sending death threats to our Twitter account, or what they assumed was our Twitter account. MWAHAHAHA!!!

However effective you thought our plan may have been, it’s looking like the UFC could be pursuing a completely different and much more intriguing option to solve the dilemma at 185 lbs.: a good old fashioned tournament. And although the flyweight tournament had some hiccups of its own, we would be hard pressed to find a more efficient method of determining a number one contender than this. But before we jump the gun, just check out what Dana White recently told Ariel Helwani (and what BG just implied) and decide for yourself:

We’re working on so much crazy shit right now — you know how I get. I get all nutty and start telling you shit I’m not supposed to be telling you. We’re working on really, really exciting stuff that we’re just going to kill it at the end of this year. Some really fun stuff…. I am very excited about the 185-pound division — it’s all I’ve been talking about for the last four days. I was on the road, in Australia, on the phone every day talking about the 185-pound division. It’s never been more exciting. I will let the cat out of the bag on Saturday about what we are going to do. Whoever wins on Saturday, I will have answers for you at the press conference.

We hate to prematurely celebrate, but…

After the jump: A full video interview with Dana White, in which he discusses all things UFC 149, the alleged nastiness of Hector Lombard, and his continuing hate-hate relationship with Dave Meltzer.

(Our approximate reaction upon hearing the news.)

We’re working on so much crazy shit right now — you know how I get. I get all nutty and start telling you shit I’m not supposed to be telling you. We’re working on really, really exciting stuff that we’re just going to kill it at the end of this year. Some really fun stuff…. I am very excited about the 185-pound division — it’s all I’ve been talking about for the last four days. I was on the road, in Australia, on the phone every day talking about the 185-pound division. It’s never been more exciting. I will let the cat out of the bag on Saturday about what we are going to do. Whoever wins on Saturday, I will have answers for you at the press conference.

We hate to prematurely celebrate, but…

With so many plausible contenders currently floating around the middleweight pool, so to speak, you’ve gotta imagine that Dana is hinting at something much bigger than a possible Boetsch/Lombard winner vs. Chris Weidman number one contender bout. Considering he’s also hinting at the end of the year, which has and always will be the best time of the year to be an MMA fan, White must be talking about a tournament, right? RIGHT? Agree or disagree in the comments section. And by disagree, we mean agree.

Check out a video of the interview below.

As noted by Helwani, The Baldfather was uncharacteristically amped throughout his interview, and dished on everything from Urijah Faber’s chances of getting another title shot down the line if he fails to deliver against Renan Barao on Saturday (hint: they aren’t great) to the validity of Dave Meltzer’s recent report on the Showtime/Zuffa deal that apparently blocks Strikeforce fighters from signing with the UFC .

When the topic of Hector Lombard was brought up, however, White revealed a rather interesting bit of info the former Bellator middleweight kingpin:

I hear things about him, you know. A lot of other fighters aren’t big fans of him and, you know, understand this…you’re dealing with fighters. We have an entire roster of guys that are really good guys, mild mannered, but every once in a while you’re going to find those guys that aren’t. And they’re mean, and their nasty, and he’s definitely one of those guys.

A word to the wise, Potato Nation: Don’t ask Hector Lombard for the typical fist pose photo should you happen to run into him on the street, or you will more than likely find that fist somewhere unexpected and less than favorable. Just sayin’.

–J. Jones