- Sean Strickland released a reply to Erick Nicksick’s negative comments about his UFC 312 performance
- “Tarzan” admitted to having low self-esteem ahead of UFC 312
Sean Strickland dropped an honest response to his coach’s criticisms following UFC 312 title fight loss to Dricus du Plessis.
Sean was struggling the whole camp
In a candid statement on Instagram, “Tarzan” explained why he was prompted to address Coach Eric Nicksick’s comments. According to Strickland, he would be looking for another coach moving forward. Moreover, the former middleweight champion pointed out that he was struggling to gain confidence during the entire camp.
“I like Eric. He’s a friend of mine and 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 [Couture]. Nate [Pettit], Ray Sefo. We have so many savages that I would love to corner me. That entire fight camp was just a struggle. Like, it was a f**king struggle. And guys, we all have our excuses as to why we didn’t win, or why we won and shouldn’t have won. We all have excuses and they don’t f**king matter,” Strickland began.
“The only reason why I’m making this video is because Eric had to go do a f**king podcast and become an influencer, so now I’ve got to like, alright, kind of explain myself. Opportunity. Not just with fighting. Opportunity never comes when it’s supposed to. It doesn’t matter what the circumstance is, what the situation is. You will never wake up and say, ‘You know what? Today is the perfect day for opportunity.’ It will come at the worst f**king time. It will come at the worst time. And how many times it comes and you raise your hand and you say, ‘You know what? I’m f**king ready,’ a lot of times you fail. A lot of the times you fail. But a lot of times you don’t fail, and it’s like you must say yes,” he continued.
“This is not an excuse, but that entire camp was just a struggle of I’m good, knowing you’re not good. I was in Columbia eight weeks out, seven weeks out getting stem cells on a broken bone. Again, bone healed fine. Not an excuse. It just kind of weighs in the back of your head. All camp, this is just in the back of your head and you keep telling yourself, ‘I’m f**king good.’ I think this is what all men do. All men do this. Like, you look in the mirror and even though you know you’re not good you go, ‘I’m good, dude. You’re a f**king man. You sack up.’ But all camp, dude, whether it be the staph infection, the broken arm, the having to get a Visa that didn’t get approved until the week, not being able to get cornermen out there. This entire camp was like a struggle of I’m not good but me looking in the mirror and saying, ‘sack up,’” he pointed out.
Sean blames loss self-esteem
Strickland went on and reflected on the things he learned from his defeat. He also ultimately attributed his loss to Du Plessis to “low self-esteem.”
“Nothing away from Dricus. He came there and fought his ass off, f**king broke my nose. Hats off. You fought like a f**king man. I don’t fight to put belts on the wall. I don’t f**king fight because Eric wants to go do a fancy podcast. That’s not why I fight,” Strickland explained.
“Before fighting, you guys, I mean I had the lowest self-esteem, f**king couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror. I didn’t even know what dignity was when I first started fighting. And kind of through fighting I’ve learned so much. I’ve met so many f**king amazing people. Through the UFC and fighting and fight fans, you guys have changed my f**king life. Changed my f**king life. You’ve made me grow so much as a person in the ring and out of the ring. That’s why I fight. I f**king love it. I’ve got a lot of fights left on my contract. I love fighting,” he continued.
“I’m going back in there gym. I’m working my a** off and I’m starting from f**king square one. And that’s kind of how life is. You always get a step back where you’re like, ‘alright, I’ve got to start over again.’ And you have a choice. You either sack up and you do it or you f**king quit. I’m going to sack up and do it,” he concluded.
What lies ahead of Strickland is yet to be seen. As it stands, “Tarzan” has now dropped to No. 2 in the middleweight rankings.
