Sean Strickland blames ‘awkward’ UFC 302 fight on Paulo Costa: ‘What the f*ck are we doing here?’
NEWARK, N.J. â Sean Strickland is the first to admit his decision win over Paulo Costa wasnât a very entertaining fight.
The former UFC middleweight champion was critical of the way things played out in his co-main event bout at UFC 302 on Saturday. Strickland (29-6 MMA, 16-6 UFC) was happy to get his hand raised and bounce back from his championship loss earlier this year, but was disappointed to not give fans a war. He believes it mainly came down to Costa (14-4 MMA, 6-4 UFC).
âIt was awkward, man. It was like a weird fight,â Strickland told reporters at the UFC 302 post-fight press conference. âThere was a moment where I stopped being in my fight stance and I just started walking forward like, âWhat the f*ck are we doing here?’â
Strickland canât pinpoint exactly what happened with Costa that caused the lackluster fight. His guess is that Costa, who has a history of putting on Fight of the Night performances, was just not up for fighting that night.
âHe did land calf kicks, but for every one calf kick he landed, I landed like five teeps,â Strickland said. âHis stomach showed more damage than my calf did. It was just a weird f*cking fight, man. I donât know what was going on with Costa. I think Costa maybe just wanted to be friends. I donât know.
â⊠You can never tell how good somebody is until they fight somebody good. I think there was that moment where every time Costa was like, âIâm going to fight this man,â he gets stuck in that phase like, âI donât think I want to fight this man today.â So I think a lot of it just is you never know how good somebody is until they fight somebody good, and thatâs what you saw there.â
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