LAS VEGAS – Seemingly, Sean Strickland much preferred the non-fight-related chatter at a UFC 276 pre-fight news conference Wednesday.
President Joe Biden, Mazdas, Canadian women, the seating arrangement in the room, anime, you name it. A whole host of random topics were all touched upon, but with the little fight talk that occurred – one thing was clear. Strickland isn’t afraid to strike with Glory Kickboxing champion Alex Pereira (5-1 MMA, 2-0 UFC) on the pay-per-view main card Saturday at T-Mobile Arena.
“He’s a big, scary Brazilian, we can all say it,” Strickland said. “The guy is massive. He walked in and I’m like, ‘Maybe I should go to welterweight again.’ Isn’t he the current Glory champion? I know he lost, but by default, they took all their belts so does that default him back to the champion? F*cking Glory cowards.”
On paper, Strickland understands why the promotion made a title eliminator fight against a relatively-unproven MMA commodity. In his eyes, the UFC wanted to give Pereira the highest-ranked fighter least likely to use wrestling. If that’s the case, sorry, UFC. Strickland said he might have to let you down.
“You could eventually go and have him fight a wrestler who will take him down and beat him and then he’ll never get the Izzy shot,” Strickland said. “Or they can be like, ‘Hey, why don’t we have him fight Sean? Sean doesn’t like to wrestle. Maybe if he beats him, then we can float him to the top.’ This is purely a ploy by the UFC putting him against someone who likes to strike to potentially get him an Izzy shot. UFC, I applaud you, but I might f*cking wrestle.”
“… I don’t know what the f*ck I’m going to do. I never walk in there with a plan. … We’ll find out. I don’t really go in with a game plan. Obviously, if I go in there and he starts hurting me, yeah. I’m going to take the coward’s way out and wrestle. Hopefully, I can stand and bang with this gigantic, scary f*cking Brazilian.”
If the opportunity to wrestle doesn’t present itself, Strickland will strike against an already-proven, championship striker. It’s no sweat off his back, though. Strickland thinks he can hang with the best of them.
“There’s not one Glory f*cking kickboxer in any f*cking weight class that I can’t stand and bang with,” Strickland said. “So don’t f*cking tell me, just because you’re some big, f*cking Brazilian and you knocked out Izzy 20 f*cking years ago, that I can’t stand and trade with you. Come on, motherf*cker. Get out of here.”
Check out Sean Strickland’s full UFC 276 pre-fight news conference in the video above.
