“I guess there was a payment dispute” – Xtreme Couture Coach reveals internal dispute between Sean Strickland and Eric Nicksick. 

Drama erupted after Sean Strickland’s coach, Eric Nicksick, criticized the former champion’s performance against Dricus Du Plessis at UFC 312. Justin Jaynes, who is one of the esteemed coaches in Xtreme Couture, reveals that the dispute runs deeper than what we have initially perceived. 

What happened between Sean Strickland and his coach Eric Nicksick?

After Sean Strickland’s stellar performance against Dricus Du Plessis in his first fight at UFC 297, people believed “Tarzan” would be more than ready to get back the championship belt in the rematch. However, in the main event of UFC 312, Strickland’s approach fell notably short, leading many to doubt whether he actually wanted to reclaim his title. 

Du Plessis looked like a million bucks, but Strickland seemed like improvement wasn’t part of his strategy. Strickland’s corner, especially his head coach Eric Nicksick persistently urged him to increase the volume and intensity of his strikes, yet he looked very disoriented inside the octagon. 

Strickland’s coach Eric Nicksick was not happy with Strickland’s performance and in Ariel Helwani’s show he said – 

“I think he needs to evaluate what he wants to do in this sport. If it’s just to make money, then that’s great. Let us know. I want to coach world champions, so my motivations are different. So I think that just to kind of show up and do that, and not really back it up, to me was just kind of uninspiring.”

Strickland and Nicksick developed a relationship that goes beyond just a coach and a fighter. They were friends, and the former middleweight champion still considers Nicksick as a friend, but Strickland probably will not have Nicksick in his corner during his future fights. 

In an Instagram video, Strickland said – 

“I like Eric. He’s a friend of mine. He’s going to continue to be a friend of mine. Will he probably be in my corner? Probably not. We have so many great guys at Xtreme. We have so many savages that can corner me. But that entire fight camp was just a struggle. It was a f*cking struggle, and we all have excuses as to why we didn’t win, or why we won or we shouldn’t have won. We all f*cking have excuses, and they don’t f*cking matter.” 

Justin Jaynes reveals a payment dispute between Eric Nicksick and Sean Strickland. 

Justin Jaynes is an MMA fighter and a coach in Xtreme Couture. According to Jaynes, he has known Nicksick for over 15 years and considers him as a personal friend who has also cornered him for multiple fights. 

After giving a quick overview of their relationship, Jaynes stated that he was blown away by Nicksick’s public criticism of Sean Strickland’s performance. He unveiled a moment when Nicksick sent him an emotional video after Strickland defeated Israel Adesanya to become the middleweight champion. Now, Jaynes finds it surprising that Nicksick turned a complete 180 after Strickland’s two defeats against DDP. Jaynes feels that Sean Strickland’s coach Eric Nicksick has abandoned him. 

In an interview with TenSevenMMA, Jaynes said – 

“I was just caught off guard and kinda like weird about it. There has to be something between the lines and then Eric talks about how he might cut ties working with Sean, and me being a fighter, there has been points in my career where friends, supporters, I lose and they abandoned me. You win in MMA, everybody wins, your coaches win, your fans win, your friends win. But, when you lose, you lose alone.”

“I saw the video of Eric, talking about Sean’s performance, talking about he doesn’t wanna coach him anymore, I felt that Eric was essentially abandoning him, and it really hit a nerve with me.”

Jaynes has also uploaded a video on his Instagram sharing his thoughts on this issue, expressing that he disagrees with the hate Strickland is getting from people. While he doesn’t slander Nicksick, he also doesn’t agree with him abandoning his fighter on a low phase of his career. 

He further elaborates that on a 15-minute call, Eric Nicksick told him some inside information related to a transactional issue between him and Strickland. 

“Going into that fight, they had talked about payment. How much he deserved to get paid, how much Sean wanted to pay and offered to pay. I guess there were some payment disputes along the lines. Again, I’m hoping to get Eric on the show and he can explain deeper, because he didn’t come out in public and talked about it.”