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UFC 297 was the first UFC pay-per-view of the year and one that ended up being pretty much a one fight card. That fight, of course, was the middleweight title fight which saw new champ Sean Strickland drop a close and controversial decision of challenger Dricus Du Pressis, thereby losing his title.
Strickland and his legion of fans who love his MAGA-style “real talk” and willingness to court controversy with his political opinions are insisting he didn’t really lose.
He’s been consistently complaining about the “head butt” since his first post-fight Tweet. The MMA Twitterverse has been consistent about rejecting his claims.
Chris Curtis says Sean Strickland not stewing on UFC title loss
Aside from a reasonable amount of complaining about the decision, Strickland is dealing with loss better than expected.
“Something I’ll say about Sean that I wish I could adopt—I always say there’s not much I would take from Sean, we’re very different people—but something I wish I could adopt is his view on fighting,” Curtis said in a recent interview on the MMA Hour (transcript via MMA Fighting). “I am very much so, ‘Chris the fighter.’ It’s who I am, it’s how I see myself, and I think that’s kind of an issue of mine to where it’s hard to differentiate myself from what I do. It’s just what I am.
“Sean loves fighting, but Sean Strickland is not, ‘Sean the fighter.’ Fighting is something he loves, but this isn’t who he is, this doesn’t define him as a person. He’s disappointed, yeah it sucks, whatever, but he’s not going to beat himself up on it. He’s been hitting me up since yesterday about snowboarding tomorrow. ‘Let’s go snowboarding, let’s do this,’ blah blah blah.
“If the roles were reversed, I’d be in a dark hole somewhere contemplating everything that’s gone wrong. He’s like, ‘Alright, it sucks. Whatever. We’ll figure it out later. Let’s go do stuff.’ So he’s handling it well. At this point in his life, he’s achieved more than anyone ever thought he would. He’s got a boatload of money, and he’s got people who care about him. He’s doing well.”
Luke Rockhold recalls sparring Sean Strickland earlier in his career
Curtis says that other than buying a Tesla, money and fame haven’t changed Strickland. Luke Rockhold remembers how he was back in the day.
“He’s just that guy that doesn’t care,” Rockhold said in a recent interview. “He’ll try to kill you. Sean Strickland walked into RVCA one time and he was such a loud mouth idiot, I was like, ‘Who the f*** is this guy?’ I was so hungover, so annoyed, I was like, ‘F***, I’m going to get in a spar with this guy, I can’t even take it.’
“But I had seen him… he hurt a guy in the gym. He hurt him with a head kick. With like 30 seconds left, he wobbled him, and [the coach] was like, ‘Keep going, finish out the round.’ Instead of what most people would do which is try to work with him — especially when you’re on somebody else’s turf — Sean went straight back to that head kick and tried to knock him out multiple times. There’s 30 seconds left in the round, the kid’s done, show yourself as a f****** man and try to finish the round rather than just go back to the well and knock him out.”
Rockhold retired but recently announced he’d exited the UFC and wants to return to MMA following a brief and bloody venture into bare-knuckle boxing that saw him lose by TKO to Mike Perry at BKFC 41 in April.