Sean Strickland became somewhat of a meme over the weekend. The mouthy middleweight got outclassed by Adesanya’s old kickboxing foe after uttering the following at the press conference:
“… I don’t know what the f*ck I’m going to do. I never walk in there with a plan.”
” … We’ll find out. I don’t really go in with a game plan. Obviously, if I go in there and he starts hurting me, yeah. ”
“I’m going to take the coward’s way out and wrestle. Hopefully, I can stand and bang with this gigantic, scary f*cking Brazilian.”
“There’s not one Glory f*cking kickboxer in any f*cking weight class that I can’t stand and bang with,” Strickland said.
“So don’t f*cking tell me, just because you’re some big, f*cking Brazilian and you knocked out Izzy 20 f*cking years ago, that I can’t stand and trade with you. Come on, motherf*cker. Get out of here.”
And he stood, banged and got finished in remarkable fashion becoming a part of a trend called MMA quotes that precede unfortunate events.
To make matters worse, Strickland still isn’t clear on why his approach to the bout was wrong.
“Well, that sucked,” he said.
“You never want to be someone’s highlight, but that’s the game we play. I tried to stand and bang with one of the best kickboxers.”
” The s****** part of it is, during the round, I kept thinking, ‘Man, this is going to be an easy fight. I see everything this guy’s throwing, I’m getting the better of the exchanges. ”
“I’m going to beat this guy up for three rounds.’ And then halfway through, I got caught. Hat’s off to Alex. He’s a f****** killer. Thanks to all my coaches – sorry we didn’t get the win.”
“It’s depressing…I’m going to go be sad for awhile. And fans, thank you for supporting me. On to the next one. It’s time to climb up the ladder again.”
When all was said and done Strickland lost via knock out in round 1 but he appears to be more or less back to his controversial self and has thanked the fans for their continued support.
Alex Pereira will be moving up in rankings – as for Strickland he’s likely to face Vettori, Cannonier or Costa in future.