UFC welterweight champion Belal Muhammad has taken issue with Dana White’s contrasting reactions to recent championship performances, highlighting what he perceives as inconsistent treatment from the UFC CEO.
Following UFC 312, White praised Sean Strickland’s professionalism despite his unanimous decision loss to Dricus Du Plessis, particularly highlighting Strickland’s composure after suffering a broken nose during the bout.
“Who is more focused, professional, and solid in a fight than he is, when he gets hurt?” White remarked at the post-fight press conference. “No sticking out the tongue or ‘no, that didn’t hurt me’ or anything. The guy stays focused, keeps coming forward, there’s never any hint of how he acts outside of the octagon when he’s in there… Absolute professional the whole time, it’s actually fascinating. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that with a guy who acts the way he does leading up to fights.”
These comments didn’t sit well with Muhammad, who recalled White’s different tone regarding his own victory over Leon Edwards in July 2024.
“I said that I was going to go in there and dominate him, and I dominated him – but then you have like Dana White saying ‘Oh, well it wasn’t a barn burner,'” Muhammad explained during an interview with Barstool Chicago. “I walked through him [Edwards], and you’ll see Strickland this weekend not do anything and Dana White’s like ‘Ah man, he’s so tough and professional, even when he broke his nose, he manned up’. I’m like ‘Bro, that was the worst title fight I’ve ever seen in my life, worst title challenger performance and yet you’re trying to put him on a pedestal like bro, get out of here with that.”
The controversy has extended beyond Muhammad’s criticism. Strickland’s coach, Eric Nicksick, expressed disappointment in his fighter’s performance, describing it as “uninspired” and questioning their future collaboration.
“I think he needs to evaluate what he wants to do in the sport… I wanna coach world champions. My motivations are different. Just to kind of show up and do that and not really back it up, to me, was just kind of uninspiring,” Nicksick stated.
Strickland has since responded to his coach’s comments via Instagram, acknowledging the likelihood of their professional relationship changing: “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 [again]? Probably not.”
