Dana White praises Sean Strickland following his loss at UFC 312 – “Who is more focused, professional, and solid than he is?”

The UFC president Dana White praised Sean Strickland after his monumental loss at UFC 312 against the champion Dricus Du Plessis. 

It might be tough for an apex organization like UFC to deal with a verbose personality like Sean Strickland who can seed controversies regardless of his location, but nobody can deny that man’s ability to fight. Although Strickland was on the losing side in the main event and fell short of his performance against Du Plessis, the applause continued because of the heart he displayed inside the octagon. 

The UFC president / CEO, Dana White shares a love-hate relationship with Sean Strickland, but he couldn’t refuse to show acknowledgment for Strickland’s ability to show toughness during a high-pressure match.

“Sean is really good at shutting people down. Like, when he fought Izzy, it didn’t look like Izzy was getting into a rhythm and he was on his face pressuring the whole time. Felt like Dricus did.”

“But I will tell you something fascinating that I noticed tonight for the first time I don’t know why. See if you’ve noticed this. So, Sean Strickland the way he acts leading up to fights, normally when you have people the way he acts, you see signs of it in a fight. Who is more focused, professional, and solid in a fight than he is? When he gets hurt, no sticking out the tongue or no that didn’t hurt me anything.”

“The guy stays focused, keeps coming forward. There’s never any hint of how he acts outside the octagon, when he’s in there, absolute professional. It’s actually fascinating, I’ve never seen a guy acts the way he does leading up to fights.” – Dana White said during the UFC 312 post-fight press conference. 

Current champion Dricus Du Plessis also looked like an upgraded version of himself against an opponent who did give a lot of problems in the first fight. This time, he beat Strickland on the feet, scoring one takedown in the entire 05 rounds, showing us the homework Dricus and his team did before the fight. The UFC president Dana White also commended “Stillknocks” for his outstanding performance and believes fighters cannot properly train for an odd style like that. 

“When I said he fights like a White Guy dances, like awkward and whatever, that’s all they have been focusing on. I was like don’t listen to the s*** that I say! Whatever he’s doing works! Because he’s the world champion and how do you spar for a guy like that? Don’t change what he’s doing on the account of what I say.” – Dana White said on Du Plessis’s performance.

After Dricus Du Plessis defeated Sean Strickland via Unanimous Decision at UFC 312, he called out the light-heavyweight champion Alex Periera for a showdown, but the fans were expecting “Stillknocks” would call out Khamzat Chimaev. 

Khamzat Chimaev dislocated Robert Whittaker’s jaw at UFC 308 to become one of the prime contenders for a title shot. Some fans wanted to see “The Borz” against Dricus Du Plessis instead of Sean Strickland at the UFC 312 main event, even Henry Cejudo had the same opinion. 

However, in the foreseeable future, we are almost sure to see Chimaev against Du Plessis. To justify the possibilities, Dana White said the UFC is going to discuss that in Tuesday. 

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