Sean Strickland is all set to put his middleweight title on the line in his upcoming bout at UFC 297 against Dricus Du Plessis. Strickland recently appeared on the podcast ‘This Past Weekend’ on Spotify to promote his fight and opened up about his career and personal life. But in his appearance at the show, he revealed a lot about his childhood and the things that he faced.
During the podcast, he shared his childhood traumas and broke down in tears talking about the same. He recalled an incident from his school years and expressed how badly his teachers treated him. ‘Tarzan’ barely slept at home due to his father’s abusive and alcoholic behavior and therefore young Strickland used to fall asleep in school.
He described how his teachers used to take away the desk and he ended up sleeping on the floor. Strickland went on to say how his teachers without taking a moment to know his side just called him “a bad kid” and this made Strickland lose his faith in God. He said,
“I remember I was like in third grade, or no, second grade and I kept falling asleep on my desk and my teacher took my desk away from me and made me like stand up. So me I’m like, ‘Fu*k you’, being this little kid, I just went ahead and fell asleep on the ground, and mind you the school system is like, ‘Sean, he’s just a bad kid’.”
Audio footage of Sean Strickland getting emotional whilst addressing his childhood trauma
— MMA Orbit (@mma_orbit) January 2, 2024
Further in the discussion, he opened up about the dynamics between his mom and dad while he was growing up. He shared one instance of how he was once hiding under the bed when his dad tried to strangle his mother. Strickland expressed how he came out and banged a guitar on his father’s head and later called the cops.
The fighter shared how abusive his father was towards his mother both physically and verbally. And how because of his father’s actions he had to miss school most of the time as his dad came back home all drunk and fought with his mom.
What is next for Sean Strickland?
The UFC middleweight champion has a professional MMA record of 28-5-0. His current record includes 28 wins (11 via knockout, 4 via submission, 13 via decision) and 5 losses (2 via knockout, 3 via decision).
The 32-year-old fighter’s last bout was against Israel Adesanya at UFC 293 which ‘Tarzan’ won via decision (unanimous). Strickland is now set to face Dricus Du Plessis in his next bout at UFC 297. The battle between the two will be a middleweight bout and will be headlining the event.
Sean Strickland will face Dricus Du Plessis for the middleweight title at UFC 297 in Toronto, Dana White announced Monday. pic.twitter.com/aaeNGlEIEe
— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) November 6, 2023
The upcoming UFC 297 event is scheduled to take place on January 20, 2024, at Scotiabank Arena, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The co-main event will be a women’s bantamweight bout between Raquel Pennington and Mayra Bueno Silva.
As much as both Strickland and du Plessis look all set for the fight and so are the fans. After a recent brawl between the two at UFC 296, things are quite heated up between them.
