Sean Strickland ‘Not Interested’ in Title Eliminator With Robert Whittaker, Waits for Ultimate Price

While many in the UFC community might be surprised by Strickland’s decision to wait for his next fight, the decision came naturally to the California native. From the looks of it, ‘Tarzan’ wants another shot at the middleweight title as soon as possible and won’t budge for anything else.

The former UFC middleweight champion lost his belt to Dricus Du Plessis in what was a neck-and-neck fight. Strickland’s biggest mistake was not pushing for a rematch hard enough, since he had a right to it as the fight was so close. Instead, he settled for a bout against Paulo Costa, and now Isreal Adesanya jumped the queue to face Du Plessis.

Sean  Strickland made it pretty evident that he still deserves the title shot with his dominant win over Paulo Costa. Moreover, in a recent tweet, the former champ revealed why he does not want to fight Robert Whittaker and is choosing to wait it out instead,

“I keep getting asked to fight whittaker. I beat Izzy, the world knows I beat dricus. Whittaker lost to both. I am the number 1 contender, I defended that spot easily against Costa. I will wait…..”

While Strickland believes he defeated Du Plessis in their first encounter, he now wants the latter’s bout against Israel Adesanya to play out normally. However, what ‘Tarzan’ does not realize is this fight will take a long time.

The pair are fighting on August 18 at UFC 305, but naturally, the loser of the fight will ask for a rematch and will most probably get it. This would mean that Strickland will get the title shot next year.

In the meantime, Sean Strickland was recently on vacation in Japan with his girlfriend. But even on vacation, the former champion found time to do his favorite thing in the world.

Sean Strickland gets some ‘brain damage’ aka sparring work done while on vacation in Japan

Sean Strickland’s Japan trip with his girlfriend seems to have been a success. The former champ got to wind down after a grueling training camp and fight against Paulo Costa. However, even while in Japan, Strickland released a video of him sparring with a former K-1 champion, and captioned it saying,

“Nothing like some brain damage on vacation haha. Yes I know I’m fat. F*ck off lol”

Tarzan’s initial plan was to fight a samurai and a Sumo wrestler while in Japan, but he had to settle for a former K-1 champion instead. Still, with sparring being his favorite form of training, Strickland was happy that he got some work in, even in the middle of a vacation.