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There is no better sign that a fighter is on the rise in the UFC than the ability to say “offensive s***” in public and not get cut.
And that’s where middleweight Sean Strickland finds himself as he heads into his second consecutive main event on Saturday when he takes on No. 6 Jack Hermansson at Apex.
Since recovering from a motorcycle accident that nearly ended his career, Strickland has won four in a row and is suddenly looking like a legitimate contender in the division.
He’s ranked seventh, but he’s a -220 favorite at BetMGM to defeat Hermansson on Saturday.
He’s got a fun, balls-to-the-wall style that makes him a fan favorite, and his backstory is compelling. Now, it’s a little disturbing how often he talks about how much he wants to kill someone, but he’s found a niche where he’s comfortable and getting attention.
He wasn’t always as outrageous and blunt as he is now, when he out-curses UFC president Dana White at a record pace.
He’s making some money, getting some attention, zooming up the rankings and loving all of it.
“I’m not broke, so that’s [f***ing] nice,” Strickland said when quizzed about the attention. “I don’t know how much you guys [in the media] make, but being broke sucks, dude. So it’s really great.”
He’s the ultimate shoot-from-the-hip type of guy, saying whatever comes into his head the moment he thinks of it. That wasn’t always the case.
He wanted to, but he wasn’t established as a fighter and knew he couldn’t get away with behavior then that is at least tolerated from the highly ranked fighters.
“You know what it is?” Strickland asked rhetorically of his newfound eagerness to talk with the media. “I am getting to a point where I can say s*** and not get cut from UFC. Before, I wasn’t good and I couldn’t say s*** because Dana White would say, ‘Hey, go f*** that white trash mother f***er. Get him out of here.’ So now, now that I’m a little more [with a] fan base, people want to watch me fight, I can say a lot more offensive s***. So it’s nice.”
That’s not a line of thought you get from most athletes — most people, to be honest — and certainly not one in public.
He once found it hard to get quality training partners because of a perception he went too hard. So he’s adopting the white trash image to a degree because it’s better to be thought of that way than to have fighters refuse to train with you.
But Strickland is one of those guys who accepts the truth.
“I still have trouble getting training partners, but I’ll say I’m not white trash,” Strickland said.”Just because I grew up without bathroom doors [doesn’t mean I’m white trash]. I grew up in a middle-class household. We had doors and we weren’t white trash.
“You know in the neighborhood, there’s always that one house that everybody avoids? Like, there’s always cop cars and always windows f***ng broken? That was us.”
The UFC used to use a slogan, “As real as it gets,” to promote its fights. Listening to Strickland makes you think whoever came up with that is cringing every time he or she hears Strickland.
It’s almost like he thinks for a moment how he could top one outrageous line with an even more outrageous one. But then he dropped the line that sounded like it could have come from White, since the UFC president has used part of it, albeit not quite as, uh, eloquently, as Strickland. And White no doubt would laugh at the latter part of Strickland’s answer about embracing his image.
“I like that they give me money, but I’m not going to sit here and wear a suit and think I’m anything other than a dog fighter,” he said. “At the end of the day, we get locked in a cage. We punch each other in the face. We try to kill each other. We make somebody millions and we get paid a fraction of that. I’m not hating. I love my job. I love what I get paid, but come on.
“We’re not doing anything special. We’re like a f***ing circus. We’re like pornography. It’s something you like and you want to [expletive] but it’s not something you want to do.”
OK.
But the crazy talk hides the fact that Strickland can fight and is showing it against increasingly good competition. A win over Hermansson could vault him into the top five where it’s hard to imagine he thought he’d be when he was laying on the ground after a serious motorcycle accident.
He’s back now and at full throttle, putting on entertaining fights and uttering one line crazier than the next. As long as he brings people out of their seats with the way he fights, he’s never going to have to worry about White talking to him about what he says.
It’s only when the fights are no longer entertaining that the shtick may wear thin. Judging by the looks of it, though, that’s still a ways away.