Sean Strickland is many things but a keen insightful fight strategist likely isn’t one of them. The brash and outspoken UFC middleweight had to eat all of his words this past weekend when former kickboxer Alex Pereira knocked him out in memorable fashion in order to streamline his own title shot.
Strickland was vary ahead of the fight and had accurately predicted that the match was being used by the UFC in order to facilitate Adesanya vs Pereira.
Prior to the bout Strickland called the UFC on their tactics saying:
“So this is literally purely just a ploy by the UFC, putting him against somebody who likes to strike, to potentially get him an Izzy shot. So, UFC, I applaud you, but I might f****** wrestle.”
But sadly his foresight didn’t outdo his ego and he also believed in his ability to match Pereira.
“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 that was all she wrote. As we all know by know, Strickland suffered a devastating knock out by the hands of Pereira in Round 1 thanks to his willingness to ‘stand and bang’ in front of the kickboxing champion.
After the fact Strickland shared a video of his reaction to the outcome.
“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.”
But later on he released another video doubling down on his poor strategy choice.
“I like to fight, you know. And if I could go back and re-fight that guy, I wouldn’t change a goddamn thing. I wanted to stand and bang with him. I thought I was doing pretty damn good, I wasn’t.”
“You know, I would do it all over again, the same exact way …This message, I just wanna convey to you guys, thank you man.”
“I know I’m not gonna be the fu**ing greatest. I’m not a Khabib or Georges St-Pierre. I’m just a guy who likes to f***ing fight. And you guys make that possible. So, f***ing thank you guys.”