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Sean Strickland’s coach Eric Nicksick can’t begin to understand what went wrong at UFC 312.
The jabs and teep kicks of the former UFC middleweight champion weren’t nearly enough to disrupt the champ Dricus du Plessis the second time they met in Sydney, Australia. Du Plessis didn’t suffer at the hands of Strickland’s volume, or as Nicksick likes to put it, ‘death by a thousand paper cuts’.
He’s keeping the belt in South Africa😮💨
Who is next for @DricusDuPlessis? 👇 pic.twitter.com/6WXhzxjv7J
— UFC (@ufc) February 9, 2025
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Instead, du Plessis outworked Strickland from the opening bell to the final, unloading everything from his diverse arsenal of strikes. Strickland had no answers – longtime head coach Nicksick trying to guide his fighter to victory between each round, now reflecting how the fight played out days later.
“It was just uninspired fighting to me,” Nicksick said of Strickland’s performance on The Ariel Helwani Show. “It just seemed like he was sleepwalking, you know? It was tough, man— trying to dig him out of it through the rounds. I didn’t know if he was trying to collect data in the beginning or if it was just a slow start or what was going on.”
Du Plessis ended up taking 4-5 rounds against Strickland on the judges’ scorecards for a unanimous decision.
“As the rounds began to progress, I can just tell that it just didn’t feel like he was in it the way, most of the times that he is. It was tough. 25 minutes to travel all the way out there and let’s not forget, this is a title fight. I take these title fights very seriously and I don’t know, I was just disappointed, man. I was disappointed with the whole entire outcome, the whole fight as a process. Just thought it was just kind of flat.”
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0-2 to du Plessis at the present, the fighting future for Sean Strickland remains uncertain. The 33-year-old says one thing but does the other, his last two performances lackluster, Strickland’s repetitive striking strategy recieving more criticism than praise.
UFC 312 may have been just an off-night for Sean Strickland but it does bring some concerns as to what the American will be fighting for, if the world title is not on the line.
“He needs to evaluate what he wants to do in this sport,” Nicksick said of the former middleweight champion. If it’s just to make money, then that’s great. Let us know. I want to coach world champions, so 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.”
“I think [Sean Strickland] needs to evaluate what he wants to do in the sport. 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… pic.twitter.com/wVl4JFnORK
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) February 11, 2025
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Coach Eric Nicksick of Xtreme Couture has trained many world champions such as Sean Strickland, Francis Ngannou, and Merab Dvalishvili.
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