The more the fighting world has got to see, and hear, of Sean Strickland, the more… outspoken, for lack of a better word, he has become.
Maybe outrageous would be a better way to describe the middleweight. Strickland (24-3) rides a five-fight win streak into the main event of UFC Vegas 47 this weekend. And while one might expect him to have learned something from his recent big fight experience, Strickland isn’t about to dress up what he does for a living.
“I obviously think that I’m a f*cking prostitute for the UFC,” Strickland exclaimed during the UFC Vegas 47 media day this week. “I like that they give me money, but I’m not going to sit here and wear a suit and think I’m anything other than a dog fighter. At the end of the day I’m going to be locked in a cage, we punch each other in the face, we try to kill each other, we make somebody millions and we get paid a fraction of that. Which I’m not hating, I love my job, I love what I get paid, but come on now.”
“We’re not doing anything special,” Strickland continued. “You guys watch us, we’re like a f*cking circus, we’re like pornography. Something you like, you want to jerk off to, but you don’t necessarily want to do.”
There was a time, Strickland noted during his expletive-filled media appearance, where he wouldn’t have been able to speak his mind. With greater success has come greater job security, it seems.
“I’m getting to the point where I can say sh*t and not get cut from the UFC,” Strickland explained. “Before, it’s like ‘aww man I wasn’t good.’ I couldn’t say sh*t, because Dana White would be like ‘hey, go f*ck that white trash motherf*cker, get him outta here.’ But now since I’m getting a little bit more [of a] fan base, people want to watch me fight, I can say a lot more offensive sh*t. So it’s nice.”
Every coach or manager he’s had, Strickland added, told him to keep quiet. “‘Sean shut up, they’re not going to sign you. Shut up, they don’t want that, they want an image.’ Now I can just be the white trash motherf*cker that I am.”
White trash or not, Strickland returns this Saturday, February 5, 2022 at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, headlining UFC Vegas 47 against Jack Hermansson. Be sure to check out Strickland’s full media day appearance above.
