Dan Henderson has saluted Sean Strickland for his work at middleweight.
The former Strikeforce and PRIDE Champion has a lot to say about the very controversial Strickland, who dethroned Israel Adesanya to become the new UFC Middleweight Champion of the world at UFC 293 last month.
Henderson On Training With Strickland
While one’s considered old school and the other new school, Henderson and Strickland are no strangers to each other as the two trained under the same roof years ago. But, according to Dan Hendo, things wouldn’t stay like that forever as ‘Tarzan’ is known to be wild in the sparring room.
“He was at my gym for like three years, kinda had to let him go,” Henderson revealed on The Joe Rogan Experience. “He just kinda gets too involved talking shit about people.”
“I liked him in the gym. I liked him there. He was a great training partner. You need at least one guy in your gym that, that does that and goes hard and makes everybody else go hard when they’re going against him. So I liked it, but [other people didn’t]. He just was too disrespectful to teammates and stuff.”
Henderson Told Strickland To Move Up To Middleweight
While Henderson may have kicked Strickland out of his gym, his support for the future champion never stopped.
“I always rooted for him when he left. I thought he had a ton of potential,” Henderson said of Strickland. “I was yelling at him to go up a weight class, cause he was always trying to make 170. I’m like, ‘dude, you need to go 185, you’d feel a lot better’. ‘You’d be fine competing up there’, but everybody’s always mentally afraid to be against the bigger guys.”
‘It’s Even More Impressive…’
Strickland spent most of his career at welterweight but he ultimately took Henderson’s advice by going to 185 after a horrific motorcycle accident in December 2018.
Since the near-death experience, Strickland started a title run at middleweight, going 7-2 before dominating Adesanya in their title fight in Australia.
Henderson, a former UFC title challenger himself, was impressed with Strickland’s performance.
“I saw parts of it and yeah, he looked great,” Henderson continued. “I thought he would do well against him. I didn’t think he’d do well just standing up with him there. I mean, I thought Adesanya would outpoint him a little bit. But, I thought Sean would take him down and beat the shit at him if he got on top.”
“[Strickland] Doesn’t have like huge power. He’s probably getting better at putting it in better places now, but he’s not a big knockout guy, but he definitely adds them up and really he’s by far one of the biggest pressure fighters that just moves forward all the time.”
“It’s even more impressive coming back from an accident like he had, too.” Henderson added. “It just shows what the body can do if you just let it— if you’re just mentally tough enough to push through something.”
