When Dricus Du Plessis and Sean Strickland first fought at UFC 297, the bout ended in a split decision after a five-round war. In the rematch at UFC 312, Strickland never got out of first gear.
The middleweight championship rematch headlined the UFC 312 fight card at Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney, Australia last Saturday. Du Plessis outworked Strickland throughout the five-round bout to retain the belt. Strickland’s coach, Eric Nicksick, opened up about the ‘uninspiring’ performance by Strickland in a recent interview.
“I was just uninspired fighting, to me. It just seemed like he was sleepwalking,” Nicksick said during an appearance on “The Ariel Helwani Show.” It was tough, man. I was 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, but as the rounds began to progress, I could just tell. I just didn’t feel like that he was in it the way most of the times that he is.
“It was tough, man. It was a tough 25 minutes to travel all the way out there. Let’s not forget, this was a title fight. I take these title fights very seriously, and I don’t know. I was just very disappointed, man. I was disappointed with the whole entire outcome and the whole fight as a process. I just thought it was kind of flat.”
Strickland was unable to make any adjustments during the fight as the rounds slipped away. Nicksick urged him to mix it up, be unpredictable, and take some risks. For whatever reason, Strickland stuck to a strategy what was losing him the fight.
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“You have to take risks. You have to make something creative happen,” Nicksick said. “Just jabbing and teeping your way to a comeback win wasn’t there. So, it’s like dude, find a same-side head kick, throw some knees up the middle. Throw something different that’s not predictable to what Dricus has seen for the last nine rounds, you know? You have to mix it up.”
At the end of the, Nicksick believes Strickland has some soul searching to do and some questions to answer moving forward.
“I think he needs to evaluate what he wants to do in this sport,” said Nicksick. “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. So I think that just to kind of show up and do that, and not really back it up, to me was just kind of uninspiring.”
