When Sean Strickland secured gold by dominating Israel Adesanya he catapulted into the mainstream spotlight, becoming the most polarizing fighter in the sport to receive that kind of attention. Strickland’s notoriety stems from leaked videos that revealed his ruthless approach in sparring sessions and controversial statements such as ‘Thank God for child abuse,’ made during his championship victory speech. During an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, the 32-year-old even expressed a desire to harm someone, shedding light on his uneasy persona. So, it’s no surprise that the middleweight champion’s been through a few gyms in his 15 years as a professional fighter.
Naturally, with a character like Strickland, everyone has a story to tell about him. This time, it was UFC Hall of Famer Dan Henderson during a guest appearance on the JRE podcast. ‘Hendo’ discusses the reason for Strickland’s departure from Team Quest.
Sean Strickland Is Removed From Team Quest
“He was at my gym for, like, three years,” Henderson said on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast. “We kind of had to let him go. He just kind of gets too involved talking s*** 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 does that and goes hard and makes everybody else go hard when they’re going against him. So I liked it.”
Henderson has a lot of respect for what Strickland brings to the table as a fighter, but Strickland is who he is and will never change. So, if teammates are insulted by his character and the gyms being negatively affected, then removing him from the gym seems reasonable.
“He just was too disrespectful to teammates and stuff. I always rooted for him when he left, it wasn’t like I was like, ‘I hope that guy…’—No, I always rooted for him. I thought he had a ton of potential. I was yelling at him to go up a weight class because he was always trying to make 170. I was like, ‘Dude, you need to go to 185. You’ll feel a lot better. You’ll be fine competing up there.’ But everybody is always mentally afraid of being against bigger guys.”
Dan Henderson on Sean Strickland’s Championship Bout
Strickland shocked the world last September after he captured gold on short notice. Fans and media wrote him off, and the bookies had him as a sizeable underdog. Most fans agreed that Adesanya would likely out-point him in a similar fashion to his wins over Marvin Vettori and Jared Cannonier.
However, while most counted him out, Henderson claims he knew Strickland would fare well against the former Glory kickboxer, but not in the way he did on the night.
“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.”
Quotes provided by MMAFighting via The Joe Rogan Experience podcast below.
Featured image credits to Embed from Getty Images and Embed from Getty Images
