MIAMI – Sean Strickland’s rise to UFC middleweight title contention has been accompanied with great performances, weird interviews and also wild sparring clips that pop up every now and then from obscure corners of the internet.
The clips are usually short and filmed under poor quality, but in a way that it adds to Strickland’s rawness. One of the most notable figures featured in those videos was 2019 PFL light heavyweight champion Emiliano Sordi.
Sordi (23-10-1) was seen going toe to toe with Strickland while the UFC middleweight did his signature, erratic talk in the middle of it. It wasn’t the first or last time Sordi trained with Strickland as he’s very familiar with sparring the show.
“I used to do a lot of rounds with him,” Sordi told MMA Junkie in Spanish. “And the problem with him is that many people don’t want to do sparring with him because he hurts them. He used to call me, and I would be like, ‘Yeah, I’m at home. Come get me. I have no problem. As many rounds as you’d like.’ It was always like that.
“He does spar in that manner, but that doesn’t bother me. I know he does it to get in your head and get in that mental game, so he can get the edge. I always laugh, and we fight. Sometimes he does say more than he should, but he never went there in my case. What I respect from him is that he’s authentic. It’s not like he talks for the sparring for social media. No, that’s how he is in real life.
“He’s crazy, and I’ve told him, ‘You’re really crazy.'”
Sordi recently moved to South Florida and is now training under Sanford MMA. However, for a long time he lived in San Diego and trained at Alliance MMA. That’s where he would train with Strickland, who’s a Las Vegas resident.
“He’s truly not right in the head,” Sordi said while fondly recalling his sparring sessions with Strickland. “So (at Alliance) we would do sparring Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. So he would travel Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday from Las Vegas to San Diego to meet up with us to do sparring with us. And then the other days he would return to Las Vegas to spar there. His training is basically just doing sparring. He doesn’t do anything else.”
Sordi, who returns to action at 2022 PFL 4 on June 17 for his second regular season light heavyweight bout, recalls a time Strickland called him last minute to spar just days away from a UFC fight.
“I’ll tell you a story,” Sordi said. “He had a (UFC) fight on a Saturday, and he was traveling to the event for fight week on a Tuesday. And he called me on Monday night around 9 or 10 p.m.
“He told me, ‘Hey, Emiliano. What are you up to?’ And I was like, ‘I’m in bed. It’s already 10.’ And he tells me, ‘I need to spar.’ And I replied, ‘But you’re fighting on Saturday.’ (Strickland said) ‘No, I want to spar.’ So I told him, ‘OK, come tomorrow to the gym, we’ll meet up and go at it.’ And he was like, ‘No, I want to spar right now.’ I told him, ‘I like sparring with you and all, but no way. I’m sleeping.’
“I’m telling you: He’s crazy. He’s truly crazy.”
