The corner team of Sean Strickland will likely look very different the next time the former UFC middleweight champion makes the walk to the Octagon.
Following his unanimous decision loss to current title-holder Dricus Du Plessis at UFC 312 last Saturday, Strickland's head cornerman/coach Eric Nicksick made an appearance on The Ariel Helwani Show during which he was very critical of Strickland's below-par performance in Sydney, Australia.
Strickland had promised fans an all-action affair in the lead-up to the fight but the performance he delivered in Saturday's main event was underwhelming to say the least.
“I think he needs to evaluate what he wants to do in this sport,” Nicksick told Helwani. “If it’s just to make money, then that’s great. Let us know. I want to coach world champions, so my motivations are different. So I think that just to kind of show up and do that, and not really back it up, to me was just kind of uninspiring.”
Sean Strickland Issues Response To Nicksick's Comments
Nicksick's comments prompted Strickland to post a response on social media. In the video, Strickland revealed he had broken a bone in his arm early in his training camp, and had also been dealing with staph infection on fight week.
“I like Eric,” Strickland said. “He’s a friend of mine. He’s going to continue to be a friend of mine. Will he probably be in my corner? Probably not. We have so many great guys at Xtreme. … We have so many savages that can corner me. But that entire fight camp was just a struggle. It was a f*cking struggle, and we all have excuses as to why we didn’t win, or why we won or we shouldn’t have won.
"We all f*cking have excuses, and they don’t f*cking matter.The only reason I’m doing this video is Eric had to go do a f*cking podcast and become an influencer so I’ve got to be like kind of explain myself.”
