Sean Strickland’s head coach reveals conversation that turned UFC 297 headliner from emotional to ‘dialed in’

The heat between Sean Strickland and Dricus du Plessis has turned up several notches since their UFC 297 main-event bout was announced, but according to the middleweight champion’s head coach, all of the drama may have helped Strickland level up.

Strickland and du Plessis battle for the UFC’s 185-pound title in Toronto on Jan. 20 at UFC 297, the promotion’s first pay-per-view event of 2024. The duo have had a war of words that some believe have crossed the line, which also led to a fight in the crowd between Strickland and du Plessis at UFC 296.

Eric Nicksick, Strickland’s head coach, recounted how Strickland was very emotional following UFC 296 fight week, and the conversation Nicksick had with the UFC champ that seems to have completely changed Strickland’s mindset.

“So there was two days,” Nicksick told MMA Fighting. “It was the Saturday when that whole little brawl thing kind of happened [at UFC 296], I didn’t see him on Sunday, and then Monday’s practice [Strickland was emotional].

“I said to him, ‘Look, I want you to understand a couple of things — that you speak for a demographic, that you speak for people that I have really never been communicating with in my life until you won this title. The amount of people that reach out to me that come from the same upbringing, the same challenges as you have had, whether you like it or not, you’re an inspiration to them, you’re a role model to them in a lot of ways.’

“I said, ‘I’m proud of you and I hope that you will understand that you can make a difference with your platform and speaking on some of these things, and the way you carry yourself now. Whether you choose to do so or not, that’s completely up to you. But just by your position that you’re in now, you’ve made a difference, and people have reached out to me and I said that I’m proud of you, I’ll leave it at that.’

“From a coach’s side, I told him, ‘I don’t want you to fight this fight emotionally because I think that favors Dricus and takes us out of our game plan.’ He said, ‘No, you’re right,’ and that was really it, that was the end of the conversation. And since then, he’s just been focused. He’s just been really dialed in. Every practice has been spot on, everything that he’s been doing has been spot on, and if that’s motivation [because of] what happened [at UFC 296], I don’t know, but from camp to camp, I feel like this one in particular has a different meaning for him.”

According to Nicksick, even Bellator middleweight champion Johnny Eblen, who was brought in to help prepare Strickland for du Plessis, agrees that Strickland has taken things up a few notches ahead of his first title defense.

Strickland captured the belt with a dominant decision win over Israel Adesanya at UFC 293 this past September. Adesanya was in a heated feud with du Plessis, but that bitterness has shifted over to this new matchup with Strickland.

During the event’s first press conference, du Plessis took a shot at Strickland’s childhood that got the champion extremely fired up.

“You think your dad beat the s*** out of you? Your dad doesn’t have s*** on me … every childhood memory you have is going to come back when I’m in there with you,” du Plessis said in December.

That moment was the gasoline that set the fire for Strickland and du Plessis’ brawl in the T-Mobile crowd — an incident that Nicksick understands, but is also not his cup of tea.

“I get it, these guys are trying to sell the fight,” Nicksick explained. “Sean will poke, and say all these things, and then it’s going to come back to you. Guys are going poke and say s*** back to you, so it’s just part of it. It is what it is.

“It’s not for me, that’s for sure. It’s not my job. My pay does not change if these guys talk s***, or show up and shake hands. I don’t care one bit. Dricus is the rightful heir to that No. 1 contender spot. He’s earned it. He’s great, I think he’s amazing, what he does, and I think he’s only gotten better. So all respect to his camp, that’s the way I look at the situation.

“If these guys want to talk about their past, and their sexuality, their dads, and all this other crap, leave it to them. I don’t want to be involved in any of that stuff. I want to go out and compete against the best, and I think Dricus is the best right now.”

Nicksick has always felt Strickland is a bit misunderstood, especially when talking about the kind of teammate he has been. Since becoming world champion, Nicksick says Strickland hasn’t rested on his laurels in any way. In fact, it’s only made Strickland want to set a better example as a fighter and a teammate.

“I think he shows his level of care even more so to the team,” Nicksick said. “I think that he’s actually like reverted back to more cleaning the mats and making sure the gym is tidy and doing all those things. Moreover, I think he wants to keep that hard work mentality, like this belt is not going change him and change who he is, and he’s not going to forget what got him here and that’s his hard work.

“But even Chris Curtis was saying [recently], ‘Sean’s approach to the game, I think is a little bit more heady.’ We talk a little bit more about being more calculated as time has gone on, but as far as just his workload and his work ethic, he was out for one week after he won the title and was back in the gym to help the rest of his teammates get ready. You can’t ask for anything better out of a teammate in the room, because now as a champion, that’s going to trickle down more and more guys are going to see, ‘OK, this is how Sean does it, this is how Sean works, this is how Sean takes care of his teammates,’ and now the next guy in line is going to feel that same way, will do the same thing, and it’s only going to help us out.”