UFC middleweight Sean Strickland has extended an apology for his controversial remarks about women’s mixed martial arts. The outspoken fighter, known for his provocative statements, found himself in hot water after making derogatory comments about female UFC champions.
Valentina Shevchenko, the UFC women’s flyweight champion, revealed that Strickland had personally apologized to her. According to Shevchenko, Strickland explained that his comments were made during a period when he wasn’t training, which he claimed led to him “losing his mind.”
“He said that when he is not training, he starts losing his mind,” Shevchenko recounted. “As he wrote, he gets possessed by demons. So he apologized in a very polite manner.”
Strickland’s original comments had sparked widespread condemnation within the MMA community. He had suggested that there was a “vast difference between men and women” in the sport and made disparaging remarks about current bantamweight champion Raquel Pennington.
This isn’t the first time Strickland has found himself embroiled in controversy. The 33-year-old fighter has a history of making contentious statements about various topics, including women’s rights and the LGBTQ+ community. In January 2022, he faced backlash for comments about hypothetical parenting scenarios, and later that year, he was temporarily suspended from Twitter for his remarks.
More recently, in January 2024, Strickland made headlines again when he lashed out at a reporter during a press conference, accusing them of being “the enemy” for questioning his past statements.
