Sean Strickland is one of the most outspoken characters in combat sports and because of that, he splits the fanbase.
This coming Saturday at UFC 312, Sean Strickland will take on Dricus Du Plessis for the middleweight title in a rematch of their first meeting this past January.
Strickland has consistently received criticism from the UFC fanbase, not only for his extremely controversial opinions but because of his passive fight style.
Ahead of their main event in Sydney, Du Plessis and Strickland seemingly still have bad blood, however, the challenger has claimed that it is calmer than their first meeting.
Strickland initiated sparring with streamer Sneako and left him bloodied
Outside of the Octagon, the former middleweight champion is bolshy and has garnered the reputation of being a fighter who spars extremely hard.
Strickland has recently drafted in the help of former rival and current light heavyweight champion, Alex Pereira, who has recently become one of his main training partners and will corner him at UFC 312.
Despite that, as well as sparring with actual elite opposition, Strickland has consistently sparred beginners, one of which being live streamer, Sneako.
When Strickland sparred with the less-than-amateur streamer, he didn’t take it easy and received a lot of criticism for how hard he went on the defenseless internet personality, leaving him bloodied and bruised.
Since then, Sneako has explained his side of the story and how the sparring session came about.
“I didn’t think he was going to go (that hard),” Sneako began to explain to former UFC star, Jorge Masvidal.
“Yeah I knew that he spars hard but I thought he would’ve realized ‘Ok, this guy doesn’t have much experience and I weigh a lot more’, he goes (hard) yeah. He asked me to spar, he came up to me and said, ‘Let’s spar’.
“I just said ‘Nice to meet you and congrats on your win’, he’d just become champion, I didn’t ask him to fight, he asked me to fight because he doesn’t like influencers. I think he was surprised that I didn’t drop,” Sneako continued.
Sean Strickland claims a rematch was needed with Dricus Du Plessis
Following their first meeting at UFC 297, Strickland complained that he was ‘robbed’ by the Canadian judges and still talks about the split decision to this day.
Because of that, ‘Tarzan’ believes the rematch had to happen, despite there being continuous calls from both the fans and Du Plessis for Khamzat Chimaev to fight for the title instead.
“This one was the most unfinished just considering the headbutt, the scorecard, the striking, the numbers, this one felt a little bit more unfinished and I got no ill will towards Dricus but we got something to settle and he knows it too,” Strickland told ESPN MMA.