Sean Strickland has taken a look at all the tough guy behavior on display at UFC 279 and decided none of it is legit.
If you were wondering whether his recent KO loss to Alex Pereira at UFC 276 might lead to less bombastic behavior from Sean, we’re here to inform you it hasn’t. Asked about the near-brawl between Khamzat Chimaev and Paulo Costa at the UFC Performance Institute last week, Strickland didn’t hold back.
“The thing about fighters, they’re a bunch of f***ing women,” he declared. “They’re a bunch of f***ing women. They run their f***ing mouth. They ask their buddies to hold them back. No one wants to fight. And this is the issue with the modern world. Every time there’s f***ing conflict, somebody pulls out a cellphone. And they’re like ‘Let me show the world!’”
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“So it’s just like, stop being a bunch of f***ing women. If you’ve got a problem with a motherf***er and you really want to fight, and it’s mutual and he really wants to fight? Just shut the f**k up, be a man, and let’s walk outside and fight. But you f***ing guys are just ‘Hold me back, hold me back!’ Like, come on you guys. Get your dicks a little bigger and just handle it like men.”
You can add Sean Strickland to the list of people questioning whether the whole last minute UFC 279 shuffle was completely organic. He was left wondering whether the canceled press conference altercation between Khamzat Chimaev and Kevin Holland was real.
“Was it staged? Who knows,” he said. “It looks like it was staged to me. I just think it’s ironic that you take the one guy that’s known for not wrestling. Kevin Holland is known not to know how to f***ing wrestle, and next thing you know, you give him the guy who’s known for wrestling. How the f*** does that work?”
Strickland largely gave Chimaev a pass over his weigh-in issues, but complained that he was sick of seeing ‘Borz’ burn through lesser opponents.
“I think they need to stop giving him guys, he needs to fight a high ranked guy,” he said. “I think Covington would be a great fight. He fought Gilbert Burns, but I think Covington should be his next fight and if he wins, he gets a title shot, hands down. He beats Covington? Title fight.”
Sean Strickland is set to return against Jared Cannonier in the main event of a December 17th UFC Fight Night. It’s a bout that was originally set for October 15th, until Strickland pulled out with a bad infection in his finger. He looks to get back on the winning path against after his loss to Alex Pereira snapped a six-fight winning streak.
As for Khamzat Chimaev, it’s still unclear when the new hottest villain on the block will return, or at which weight class.