Days after shredding Sean Strickland over his efficiency at UFC 312, coach Eric Nicksick knew he’d f*cked up.
Strickland got here up brief in his long-awaited rematch with reigning middleweight champion Dricus Du Plessis in Sydney, Australia, delivering a lackluster efficiency en path to a decisive unanimous resolution defeat. Strickland’s poor outing was made all of the extra worse by the truth that the fighter had challenged ‘DDP’ to struggle him “to the dying” 48 hours earlier.
Addressing his fighters’ shortcomings on an episode of The Ariel Helwani Present following UFC 312, Nicksick known as Strickland’s displaying “uninspired” and that it appeared like he was “sleepwalking” by the entire 25-minute affair.
Nicksick then went on to recommend that if Strickland is just not all for changing into a world champion as soon as once more, he could must search for one other coach.
“It was simply uninspired combating to me,” Nicksick mentioned. “It simply appeared like he was sleepwalking. … It was a troublesome 25 minutes to journey all the best way on the market. Let’s not neglect, this was a title struggle. I take these title fights very significantly, and I don’t know. I used to be simply very dissatisfied, man. I used to be dissatisfied with the entire total final result and the entire struggle as a course of. I simply thought it was sort of flat.”
Nicksick continued, “I feel he wants to guage what he desires to do on this sport. If it’s simply to earn money, then that’s nice. Tell us. I need to coach world champions, so my motivations are completely different.”
Getting wind of Nicksick’s feedback, Strickland launched a prolonged response on X revealing that Nicksick doubtless received’t be in his nook going ahead.
Eric Nicksick specific remorse after lambasting Strickland over UFC 312 loss
Trying again on all of the drama throughout a current episode of his Verse Us podcast, Nicksick stood by the message he delivered on Helwani’s present however admitted that his supply might have been loads higher.
“And it was very disappointing to listen to the place his headspace was and what his thought course of was about being a champion or all these items. And that’s private. I ought to have recognized higher. I took that vitality and needed to course of that whereas I am going on Ariel’s present. I f*cked up. I f*cked up. … I made a miscalculation in that second in ever accepting to go on the present. My wording was piss poor.
“What I mentioned was correct—the struggle was uninspiring. Everyone knows Sean. That isn’t how Sean fights. What I mentioned was correct. Am I to shoulder a few of that blame? 100%. I made a calculated error on that half. However what I used to be making an attempt to do, in a roundabout method, was problem my fighter to carry out higher the following trip.”
