Sean Strickland isn’t done raging against the UFC and its treatment of fighters.
On Wednesday, Strickland took to Twitter to vent his frustrations over being under-compensated and under-appreciated even though he is currently in his second reign as UFC middleweight champion. He criticized the promotion for overpaying star Conor McGregor, who has fought just once since 2021, and Zuffa Boxing signing Conor Benn, going as far as to say he plans to exit the promotion as soon as his contract is done to pursue a fight with Jake Paul.
Strickland followed up on that rant in a clip posted to social media, which you can watch below.
“I fought for the title four times, I won it twice, beat all the boogeymen of the division,” Strickland said. “I fought half the division already, I want to box. I want to go put a f*cking boxing title on my mantle. I deserve it. I don’t even do MMA, I just box. I will put hands on any boxer.
“If Jake Paul wants to give me a big old bag of money to fight him, I’m under contract, fine, I’ll go to Zuffa [Boxing], I’ll go beat your cruiserweight champ, easy.”
Strickland already holds wins over numerous middleweight standouts, including Israel Adesanya and Khamzat Chimaev, and current contenders Nassourdine Imavov and Anthony Hernandez. Rematches with Chimaev and Imavov have been rumored to be in the works, but Strickland has spent much of the past few months dealing with injuries and is now focused on making it clear where he stands with the UFC.
The always opinionated Strickland blames the UFC for stringing along its best fighters without presenting a realistic path for them to retire.
“But let me tell you something about the UFC and I’m going to say the quiet part out loud that nobody says,” Strickland said. “You’ll go and you’ll watch these champions, these savages of the sport, they run the division, and they take an L, and they come back and they just fight like three or four times, they get f*cking flatlined. Like, dude, what happened to you? And you realize the UFC happened. They just don’t care anymore.
“The UFC, they don’t pay you enough money to walk away like, ‘Man, life is f*cking good. I’ve dedicated my life to this, I put the time in this.’ The UFC builds a legacy, they keep you right here, but they build a legacy and they don’t pay you enough so you have to come back and ruin your legacy. I just don’t want to do that. It’s like this repackaged McDonald’s straight to the head. I’m not into it anymore.”
Strickland maintains he still wants to fight, but his primary goal is going where he will be best compensated, and if that means pursuing novelty boxing matches with the likes of Paul, then so be it.
“I want to fight, I want to box, I want to go win a boxing title, so we’re trying to work that out, but if the UFC says, ‘Hey, we’re not going to do that. We’re going to make you fight,’, well, I’m going to stick and move,” Strickland said. “You guys are going to boo. Hell, I’ll f*cking boo with you while I’m doing it. Just stick and move, collect my check and then move on. I mean, hell, here we are.”
