Even though he got his hand raised at UFC 47 last night, Sean Strickland did not live up to his own standards of bloodshed and violence, and he's putting a portion of the blame on some fancypants folks in suits.
Sure, Sean Strickland was able to pick up his sixth consecutive victory, which at this level is always something to be proud of. However, Strickland didn't feel much like celebrating after defeating Jack Hermansson in the UFC Vegas 47 main event.
This is due to his game plan of taking Hermansson's soul and leaving him bloody not coming to fruition. Instead, MMA's verbal wildman played it safe and conservative in the cage, fighting like a "pussy" as he described it in his Octagon interview.
Although Strickland did not shy away from taking the lion's share of the blame for what he considered to be an underwhelming victory, he also thinks the pressure from outside sources played a role in his performance. Specifically, he cited anonymous folks in suits who got in his head.
“I mean, none of you guys wear suits, so I can’t say this to you guys. You guys all look like common folk," Strickland said when addressing reporters in the post-fight press conference. "But I get a lot of fancy fuckers who wear suits, and they come up to me and they start talking about title fights and things of that nature. You hear that all the time and you start thinking, ‘Do I really want to risk getting knocked out when I could go for a title fight?' So I let the fancy folk in the suits throw me off a little bit, but it won’t happen again.”
Strickland's description of events sounds like something straight out of a Men in Black movie, with one of the suits flashing the neuralyzer in Strickland's face, prompting him to forget his gory ways.
In any event, a W is a W, and it can't be denied that "Tarzan" is now one step closer to a title shot and an opportunity at a bloody redemption in front of an even wider audience.
Do you believe Sean Strickland should be next in line for a welterweight title shot?