Former UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland has been receiving plenty of flak for his defeat this past weekend, and it's clear that even his own team is under no illusion about their man's underperformance.
Strickland vowed to put on a war in pursuit of redemption against Dricus Du Plessis — the man who took the 185-pound gold from him early last year — in the UFC 312 main event on Feb. 8.
But in his return to the site where he shockingly dethroned Israel Adesanya in 2023, the polarizing American was unable to repeat the feat. Instead, the South African once again got the better of him on the scorecards, this time much more definitively.
The defeated challenger has been criticized for not letting his hands go and putting any sort of pressure on the champ throughout the five-round contest. And perhaps the most brutally honest take to date has come from the lips of his head coach.
During an appearance on Tuesday's episode of The Ariel Helwani Show on Uncrowned, Nicksick described his frustrations as he watched Strickland's lackluster display from the corner inside Sydney's Qudos Bank Arena.
I think (Strickland) needs to evaluate what he wants to do in the sport," Nicksick said. "If it's just to make money, then that's great. Let us know. I wanna coach world champions. My motivations are different. Just to kind of show up and do that and not really back it up, to me, was just kind of uninspiring.
It was just uninspired fighting to me. It just seemed like (Strickland) was sleepwalking. It was tough, man," Nicksick continued. "To travel all the way (to Australia) — and let's not forget, this is a title fight...I take these title fights very seriously. I was just disappointed, man.
It remains to be seen how Strickland will react to Nicksick's stance, and what kind of conversations the two have had behind closed doors in the aftermath of Saturday's pay-per-view event Down Under.