Sean Strickland will continue his relationship with Eric Nicksick, but it’s unlikely the Xtreme Couture head coach will continue to corner him.
Strickland, the former UFC middleweight champ who lost a rematch with Dricus Du Plessis this past weekend at UFC 312, said as much while responding to a Nicksick appearance on The Ariel Helwani Show, in which the coach questioned whether Strickland was looking to be a world champion, or just fight for money. Particularly, he suggested Strickland was “uninspiring” and added that “he needs to evaluate what he wants to do in this sport.”
In a lengthy video response posted directly to social media, Strickland opened by noting the number of fans who had tagged him with clips of Nicksick’s comments.
“I like Eric. He’s a friend of mine, and he’s going to continue to be a friend of mine. Will he probably be in my corner? Probably not,” announced Strickland. “We have so many great guys at Xtreme [Couture], Nate, Ray Sefo, we have so many savages that I would love to corner me. But you know man, that entire fight camp was just a struggle. It was a f*cking struggle. And guys we all have excuses as to why we didn’t win or why we won and we shouldn’t have won. We all f*cking have excuses, and they don’t f*cking matter. 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 gotta like alright, kind of explain myself.”
Over the next couple of minutes, Strickland would reveal a number of issues heading into UFC 312, including a broken arm, well-documented staph infection, and visa issues.
“Opportunity, and not just with fighting, opportunity never comes when it’s supposed to. It doesn’t matter what the circumstances [are], what the situation is, you will never wake up and say ‘you know, today is the perfect day for opportunity.’ It will come at the worst f*cking time. It will come at the worst time,” observed the former middleweight champ. “And how many times it comes, and you raise your hand, you say ‘you know what, I’m f*cking ready.’ A lot of the 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.”
“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. I was in Columbia like 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. I was training with that Ridder guy [Reinier de Ridder], the submission guy, and he hit me with a whizzer. It was already broken, and I thought my arm f*cking snapped. I thought my arm snapped, I was like ‘I gotta go to Columbia, this is f*cked.'”
All of this was in the back of his head, continued Strickland, adding “you just keep telling yourself ‘I’m f*cking good.’ And I think this is what all men do. All men do this. You look in the mirror, and even though you’re not good, you’re like ‘I’m fucking good, you’re a f*cking man, you sack up.’ But all camp, the staph infection, the broken arm, having to get a visa that didn’t get approved until a week [out], not being able to get cornermen out there. This entire camp was a struggle of ‘I’m not good’ but me looking in the mirror and saying ‘sack up.’ And nothing with Dricus who came in, fought his ass off, broke my f*cking nose. Hell yeah man, hat’s off, you fought like a f*cking man.”
Responding to Nicksick questioning whether his student was fighting for belts or money – Sean Strickland has long been vocal that he’s not, in fact, fighting for belts – Strickland added that “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, I had the lowest self esteem, f*cking couldn’t even look at myself in the f*cking 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 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. And that’s why I fight. I f*cking love it.”
Strickland finished his thoughts by saying he had a lot of fights left on his contract, loved his job, and that he was going to get back in the gym, and go back to square one. It was “sack up and do it or f*cking quit,” and he’s opting to “sack up,” as he put it.
On to the next one then, though likely with a new corner.
