Hilarious reason why Sean Strickland will not try to wrestle or use jiu-jitsu against Israel Adesanya at UFC 293
Sean Strickland will challenge Israel Adesanya for the middleweight title at UFC 293 at the Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney, Australia on September 9. Considering how he got starched against Alex Pereira, which was also his last outing against an elite striker, Strickland's most obvious gameplan would be to wrestle Adesanya.
Although he has been putting in hours on the mat, Strickland believes he might just end up in a stand-up slugfest against 'The Last Stylebender', because he might simply feel like it. Strickland recently told Nina-Marie Daniele:
"I've been wrestling a lot in camp. But you know, sometimes you get up there, you're looking at the man. And I think to myself, 'I wanna stand and bang with this guy'. So I probably should wrestle but that's probably not gonna happen."
While he also admitted to being a BJJ black belt, Sean Strickland doesn't have a high opinion of its utility in MMA. Flashing his piece briefly, the avid gun control protestor said:
"Yeah, I got one [BJJ black belt] a while ago. It's bulls*it, doesn't work. Doesn't work you guys, jiu-jitsu don't work. It's somewhere in the trunk, my black belt, I lost my gi. I don't wear it anymore. Why do you need a black belt when you got a gun."
Catch Strickland's comments below:
Israel Adesanya promises to knock Sean Strickland out with nail paint on
Sean Strickland is known for unabashedly voicing his controversial views on several topics including gender. Israel Adesanya's anime-loving persona, flaunting nail paint doesn't fit well into Strickland's version of masculinity, leading to multiple digs from the latter.
However, 'The Last Stylebender', who had a rattling exchange with Strickland during a July 2022 presser, is seemingly unbothered by the nail paint digs. Promising to knock out his foe with nail paint on, the UFC middleweight champ recently told MMA Fighting:
“He’s an idiot. I’m not going to lose to an idiot. He says he’s not going to lose to a guy that jerks off to cartoons or paints his nails. Well, I’m going to paint my nails for that fight and I’m going to knock him out with my painted nails.”