Sean Strickland has been very vocal online in his disgust at MMA coaches that date their female fighters, and that recently resulted in a real life confrontation with former UFC fighter Aspen Ladd’s coach / boyfriend Jim West.
Back in May, Strickland wrote a number of tweets targeting 45-year-old MMA Gold coach Jim West, accusing him of grooming his 27-year-old girlfriend Ladd when she was underage.
“Women are very easy targets for male coaches, automatically assume weird father role which turns into a hero worship complex,” Strickland wrote in a Twitter post. “The fact you started to train with him at what 12? 100 percent grooming sexual predator. Tell me my facts are wrong and I’ll apologize now.”
West took the opportunity to try and correct Strickland’s facts when they ran into each other outside of the UFC Performance Institute.
“Guys, the most awkward sh*t just happened to me, right?” Sean Strickland said in an Instagram video. “I’m leaving the PI, this guy walks up to me, goes ‘Hello Sean, my name is Jim West.’ I’m thinking, ‘Oh man, me and this dude are about to scrap in front of the PI’ and I start getting excited. But then, he’s really f***ing cool to me, and I’m like ‘Oh, well, now this is awkward because I thought we were gonna f***ing fight.’”
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“Anyways, so he comes up to me and is like ‘Well Sean, I heard what you said, and I was a former detective.’ Like that means f*** all, you shady bastard. ‘I was a former detective, and I did not know Aspen Ladd until she was 18.’ And I’m like ‘Yeah, I know dude. I’m not gonna get into this, but, like, it’s f***ing questionable and I’m still gonna talk s*** because it needs to happen.’ I’m like, ‘Have a good one,’ and I walk away.”
“But now, since I was reminded of the situation, Jim West, she was training at your gym at 14 or 15 years old, right?” Strickland continued. “We can say this is true. And at some point, she turned 18, and this girl you had no idea existed, she turned 18 and you’re like ‘You know what? Now I’m gonna put my penis in her and make her my girlfriend.’ Now, that sounds like grooming to me. But again, you also had no idea who she was and she just put out really f***ing fast. So, I mean, sounds like grooming, but, who knows?”
Jim West appeared in the comments of the video to contest Strickland’s timeline.
“It was nice to meet you Sean but your facts are incorrect,” West wrote. “Aspen trained at Underground MMA in Jackson California when she was 14. Lol at least have your facts straight. She didn’t train at MMA Gold which was Folsom MMA until she was 18. From 14 to 18 she trained at Underground MMA. Again. You can talk s***. That’s your prerogative. There is your facts.”
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The latest online back-and-forth didn’t do much to stop Strickland from attacking West. Soon after he posted an old interaction between West and Miesha Tate where West called her a ‘dumb f***.’
“Miesha Tate, I just met Jim West … I didn’t get called that….. must be because I don’t have a vagina and am over the age of 18 lmao….. The internet is a crazy place…”
What do you think, PENN Nation? Is Sean Strickland right about MMA coaches dating students? Let us know in the comments!