Sean Strickland is not happy.
For the second straight day, the UFC middleweight champion (at least for now) aired out grievances about the promotion and its financial compensation. This time, he shared what he called "the quiet part out loud."
"I fought for the title four times," Strickland said. "I won it twice, beat all the boogeymen in the division. Hell, I fought half the division already. I want to box. I want to go put a f*cking boxing title on my mantle. I deserve it. I don't even do MMA. I just box. I will put hands on any boxer. Jake Paul wants to give me a big, old bag of money to fight him. I'm under contract. Fine, I'll go Zuffa. I'll go beat your cruiserweight champ – easy.
"But let me tell you something about the UFC. I'm going to
say the quiet part out loud that nobody says. You'll go, you watch these champions, right? These savages of the sport, they run the division, and they take an L, and then they come back, and they just fight like three or four times. They get f*cking flatlined. You're like, 'Dude, what happened to you?' And you realize the UFC happened. They just don't care anymore. The UFC, they don't pay you enough money to walk away like, 'Man, life is f*cking good. I've dedicated my life to this. I put the time in this.' The UFC builds a legacy. They keep it right here, but they build a legacy, and they don't pay you enough. So you have to come back and ruin your legacy. I don't want to do that, man."
Strickland (31-7 MMA, 18-7 UFC), who pondered vacating his title and walking away from MMA entirely in a series of tweets Wednesday, packaged up his distaste and disdain a bit more colorfully in Thursday's diatribe.
"It's like this goy slop repackaged McDonald's straight to the head, dude," Strickland said. "I'm just not in it anymore. I want to fight. I want to box. I want to go win a boxing title. So we're trying to work that out. But if the UFC says, 'Hey, we're not going to do that. We're going to make you fight.' Well, I'm going to stick and move. You guys are going to boo. Hell, I'll f*cking boo with you while I'm doing it. Just stick and move, collect my check, and then move on. But I mean, hell, here we are."
Strickland, 35, was expected to face top challenger Nassourdine Imavov next, though the promotion recently finalized its 2026 numbered card headliners with the announcement of Charles Oliveira vs. Diego Lopes at UFC 335 in December. The earliest Strickland vs. Imavov (17-4 MMA, 9-2 UFC) could take place would then be January, though it sounds like nothing in the future is certain.
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Disgruntled Sean Strickland shares 'quiet part out loud that nobody says' about UFC
