"I'm not a Khabib or Georges St-Pierre" - Sean Strickland bares all in honest reaction to getting knocked out by Alex Pereira at UFC 276

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(Clockwise) Sean Strickland, GSP vs. Thiago Alves, Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Dustin Poirier, Strickland vs. Alex Pereira [Images via @BTSport on YouTube and @ufc on Instagram]

Sean Strickland is not one to mince his words, even after a vicious knockout loss. 'Tarzan' recently gave his honest reaction after a first-round KO loss to Alex Pereira at UFC 276.

Strickland's decision to engage in stand-up against the former GLORY Kickboxing champion was questioned by many. However, the UFC middleweight prospect said he would have taken the same approach if he could do it a second time.

'Tarzan' also accepted that he would probably not feature in G.O.A.T talks amongst the likes of Khabib Nurmagomedov and Georges St-Pierre. Thanking his fan base, Strickland said on Instagram:

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"I like to fight, you know. And if I could go back and re-fight that guy, I wouldn't change a goddamn thing. I wanted to stand and bang with him. I thought I was doing pretty damn good, I wasn't. You know, I would do it all over again, the same exact way..."

He concluded by saying:

"This message, I just wanna convey to you guys, thank you man. I know I'm not gonna be the fu**ing greatest. I'm not a Khabib or Georges St-Pierre. I'm just a guy who likes to f***ing fight. And you guys make that possible. So, f***ing thank you guys."

Watch Strickland's video below:

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Sean Strickland had threatened a wrestling-heavy approach against Alex Pereira

Holding two kickboxing victories against Israel Adesanya, Alex Pereira has had a lot of hype behind him since his UFC debut last year. Despite being relatively new to MMA (6-1), 'Poatan' was a favorite going into his UFC 276 bout against the far more experienced Sean Strickland (25-4).

Without mincing his words, Strickland opined that the bout was a ploy by the UFC to propel Pereira towards title contention against Adesanya. According to 'Tarzan', the UFC pitted him against a striker so that he could avoid being dominated by a wrestler. However, the 31-year-old hinted that he could be adopting a wrestling-heavy approach. Strickland said at the UFC 276 pre-fight scrum:

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"He’s the one that knocked out Izzy, so it’s like here’s what you can do: You can have him go and then he’ll eventually fight a wrestler who will take him down and beat him, and then they’ll never get the Izzy shot, or they could be like, ‘Hey, why don’t we have him fight Sean? Sean doesn’t like to wrestle. Maybe if [Pereira] beats him, then we could float him to the top.'

So this is literally purely just a ploy by the UFC, putting him against somebody who likes to strike, to potentially get him an Izzy shot. So, UFC, I applaud you, but I might f****** wrestle."

Watch Sean Strickland's appearance at the UFC 276 post-fight presser below:

The UFC ploy may have worked as Adesanya called out Pereira following his successful title defense against Jared Cannonier.

Do check out the video below made by Sportskeeda:

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