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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Sport
Ben Davies

Israel Adesanya hits out at UFC rival for "hurting" teammates in sparring

Israel Adesanya has criticised Sean Strickland for his antics in sparring claiming that the UFC star has a "screw loose".

Strickland has been hugely controversial during his UFC career having admitted to going through "a weird neo-Nazi phase" in addition to making a whole host of borderline comments in wacky interviews. He has also come under scrutiny for his attitude to sparring which has seen him inflict damage on several of his partners including when recently stopping in California to spar a local kickboxer.

Strickland denied anything untoward about the video claiming that he had warned his teammate of the plan to fight at 100 per cent in the session. However Adesanya has claimed he has seen Strickland inflict more damage on YouTube than in his UFC outings. "Sean Strickland. He's a bad m***erf***er," Adesanya said when addressing the sparring footage on his YouTube channel. "Like, literally bad. Rotten apple. But I like the guy, he's funny and he likes to talk s*** as well.

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