Sean Strickland is broadly thought of among the many most boring fighters in UFC historical past. Heading into 2026, the UFC has minimize a number of athletes for being boring. This begs the query of why the organisation is utilizing him, except it’s a slap within the face to followers.
Whether or not Strickland is narrowly successful or simply shedding, he ensures that followers watching the occasion aren’t entertained. It takes an unbelievable quantity of willpower to take a fist struggle in a cage and someway make it lame. However right here we’re, simply days away from one other foremost occasion that includes Strickland. His greatest followers stay individuals who battle to sleep and are searching for any treatment.
Why is Sean Strickland Nonetheless Competing if the UFC is Chopping Boring Fighters?
If his opponent is seeking to brawl, wrestle, or be aggressive in any approach, Strickland will discover the fortitude guarantee they struggle on the tempo of his selecting. Strickland as soon as took a seventeen-hour flight and was deathly bored your entire time. He then used that concept as a template for the tempo of preventing he enjoys. Entrance foot or again foot, it doesn’t matter. He’ll discover a approach to not have interaction.
All through his UFC profession, the 34-year-old athlete has landed a whopping 2,197 important strikes over 4 hours of cage time, with two knockout wins in his 16 UFC victories. He’s put extra followers to sleep than opponents within the octagon.
His most up-to-date UFC win was a five-round break up resolution over Paulo Costa, which left followers begging for fights to be ended early as a result of timidity. On the time, Costa had no wins over any lively UFC fighter however was ranked as probably the most entertaining fighters in MMA historical past. Strickland discovered a approach to make his opponent passive and nonetheless barely gained on the scorecards.
As a result of he’s so boring within the cage, Strickland has invented a persona to maintain the eye on him, thus distracting viewers from his precise means. Whereas he struggles in opposition to ranked competitors, Strickland has no challenge punching down. Whether or not he’s attacking untrained streamers or verbally insulting girls and the LGBTQ neighborhood, he ensures his actual targets are weak teams.
As Friedrich Nietzsche suggests, going out of your approach to harm these with much less energy than you normally alerts an absence of energy, not power. As Seneca put it, all cruelty springs from weak point; the urge to bully weak folks is much less a present of power than an admission you don’t have any.
“I don’t speak trash, I knock folks out. I don’t want to speak trash to promote a struggle, the folks need to see knockouts and that’s what I do.” – Terance Crawford.
MMA has seen its justifiable share of manly males who will look to struggle to the demise. Don Frye brawled in opposition to anybody at any weight whereas waving the American flag. Wanderlei Silva fought in bare-knuckle no-rules competitors, then introduced his harmful action-style to promote out stadiums in Tokyo. Chuck Liddell, Mark Hunt, Dan Henderson, Shogun Rua, Tank Abbott, these males fought with grit in opposition to anybody. Strickland merely doesn’t slot in with this class, regardless of the concept of manliness he constantly speaks about.
Royce Gracie was an undersized athlete who confronted anybody in no-rules competitors. The unique concept behind the UFC was so thrilling that it created a whole sport that spans the globe. If Strickland competed throughout this period, it will have ended after only one occasion.
Rinat Fakhretdinov, Jairzinho Rozenstruik, Martin Buday, and Jailton Almeida had been all minimize by the UFC for his or her boring model. Commentator Laura Sanko not too long ago defined that the UFC is searching for fighters who’re violent and entertaining. “The pattern will persist in favor of violence,” Sanko defined. “There’s a whole lot of dialogue now about rewarding aggressive fighters, celebrating finishes, and fighters aiming for these decisive outcomes. There’s a way that with this new broadcasting partnership, we have to exhibit to viewers what true preventing entails … The athletes who rise to stardom shall be those that ship these spectacular finishes.”
Strickland has turn into the clearest contradiction within the UFC’s new “violence first” period: a secure, low-output level fighter thriving in a promotion that’s supposedly slicing his actual archetype. Each sleep-inducing foremost occasion he delivers makes the “we’re executed with boring fighters” message look hole. If the promotion is critical about rewarding motion and punishing timidity, then preserving Strickland in marquee spots is inconsistent and an insult to the followers.
