Former middleweight titleholder Sean Strickland suffered a one-sided decision loss to champion Dricus Du Plessis in the UFC 312 main event this past weekend. His performance drew criticism from fans, fighters, and even his own coach.
Stickland’s coach, Eric Nicksick, appearance on “The Ariel Helwani Show.” on Tuesday and called Strickland’s UFC 312 performance ‘uninspiring.’ Clearly frustrated, Nicksick said Strickland needs to think about what he wants to do in the sport moving forward.
“I think he needs to evaluate what he wants to do in this sport,” said Nicksick. “If it’s just to make money, then that’s great. Let us know. I want to coach world champions, so my motivations are different. So I think that just to kind of show up and do that, and not really back it up, to me was just kind of uninspiring.”
In his video response to Nicksick’s comments, Strickland revealed that the training camp leading up to the fight was less than ideal.
“I like Eric. He’s a friend of mind and he’s going to continue to be a friend of mine. Will he probably be in my corner? Probably not,” Strickland said. “We have so many great guys at Xtreme [Couture]: Nate [Pettit], Ray Sefo. We have so many savages that I would love to corner me.
“That entire fight camp was just a struggle. Like, it was a f*cking struggle. And guys, we all have our excuses as to why we didn’t win, or why we won and shouldn’t have won. We all have excuses and they don’t f*cking matter,” Strickland continued.
“The only reason why I’m making this video is because Eric had to go do a f*cking podcast and become an influencer, so now I’ve got to like, alright, kind of explain myself.
“Opportunity. Not just with fighting. Opportunity never comes when it’s supposed to. It doesn’t matter what the circumstance is, what the situation is. You will never wake up and say, ‘You know what? Today is the perfect day for opportunity.’ It will come at the worst f*cking time. It will come at the worst time. And how many times it comes and you raise your hand and you say, ‘You know what? I’m f*cking ready,’ a lot of times you fail. A lot of the times you fail. But a lot of times you don’t fail, and it’s like you must say yes.”
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Strickland disclosed several things that happened during fight camp and leading up to the fight that served as distractions, but took nothing away from Du Plessis’ dominating win.
“This is not an excuse, but that entire camp was just a struggle of I’m good. I’m good, knowing you’re not good,” Strickland said. “I was in Columbia eight weeks out, seven weeks out getting stem cells on a broken bone. Again, bone healed fine. Not an excuse. It just kind of weighs in the back of your head.”
“All camp this is just in the back of your head and you keep telling yourself, ‘I’m f*cking good.’ I think this is what all men do. All men do this. Like, you look in the mirror and even though you know you’re not good you go, ‘I’m good, dude. You’re a f*cking man. You sack up.’ But all camp, dude, whether it be the staph infection, the broken arm, the having to get a Visa that didn’t get approved until the week, not bering able to get cornermen out there. This entire camp was like a struggle of I’m not good but me looking in the mirror and saying, ‘sack up.’
“Nothing away from Dricus. He came there and fought his ass off, f*cking broke my nose. Hats off. You fought like a f*cking man,” continued Strickland.
“I don’t fight to put belts on the wall. I don’t f*cking fight because Eric wants to go do a fancy podcast. That’s not why I fight. Before fighting, you guys, I mean I had the lowest self esteem, f*cking couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror. I didn’t even know what dignity was when I first started fighting. And kind of through fighting I’ve learned so much. I’ve met so many f*cking amazing people. Through the UFC and fighting and fight fans, you guys have changed my f*cking life. Changed my f*cking life. You’ve made me grow so much as a person in the ring and out of the ring. That’s why I fight. I f*cking love it. I’ve got a lot of fights left on my contract. I love fighting.
“I’m going back in there gym. I’m working my ass off and I’m starting from f*cking square one. And that’s kind of how life is. You always get a step back where you’re like, ‘alright, I’ve got to start over again.’ And you have a choice. You either sack up and you do it or you f*cking quit. I’m going to sack up and do it.”
