Sean Strickland’s performance in the UFC 312 title rematch against Dricus Du Plessis left everyone wanting more, including his head coach Eric Nicksick.
The middleweight title rematch headlined this past weekend’s pay-per-view event at Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney, Australia. Du Plessis retained his crown by winning a clear unanimous decision over a bloodied Strickland (29-7 MMA, 16-7 UFC), who didn’t bring much to the table in an effort to reclaim the title he once held.
“I was just uninspired fighting, to me,” Nicksick said on “The Ariel Helwani Show.” “It just seemed like he was sleepwalking. It was tough, man. I was trying to dig him out of it through the rounds. I didn’t know if he was trying to collect data in the beginning, or if it was just a slow start or what was going on, but as the rounds began to progress, I could just tell. I just didn’t feel like that he was in it the way most of the times that he is.
“It was tough, man. It was a tough 25 minutes to travel all the way out there. Let’s not forget, this was a title fight. I take these title fights very seriously, and I don’t know. I was just very disappointed, man. I was disappointed with the whole entire outcome and the whole fight as a process. I just thought it was kind of flat.”
At the completion of every round in the fight, Nicksick’s sense of urgency grew louder, but it seemed his instructions fell on deaf ears. Strickland, 33, made little to no adjustments as the fight went on and consistently allowed Du Plessis to dictate the fight.
“The jab and the teep aren’t going to win the fight,” Nicksick said. “It’s like if you have a predictable offense and you run this slow-paced offense in football and you get down by 30, you don’t have the ability to come back and win those games.
“… You have to take risks. You have to make something creative happen. Just jabbing and teeping your way to a comeback win wasn’t there. So, it’s like dude, find a same-side head kick, throw some knees up the middle. Throw something different that’s not predictable to what Dricus has seen for the last nine rounds, you know? You have to mix it up.”
In their first meeting at UFC 297, Strickland won three rounds on one card to force a split decision that went in Du Plessis’ favor. That fight was Strickland’s first attempt at a title defense, and was certainly more intense. However, at UFC 312, Strickland managed to win just one round on one of the three official judges’ scorecards.
“I even said to Dricus after the fight, ‘Man, I wish he would have given you a better fight. You deserved a better fight than that,'” Nicksick said. “He didn’t have to do much. I felt like Dricus saw how Sean was fighting and minimized every risk that he had to take, and just did his job and got out of there 25 minutes scot-free.”
The UFC was criticized for even placing Strickland in another title fight so quickly. After losing to Du Plessis the first time, Strickland rebounded with a split decision win against Paulo Costa. That win was good enough for the promotion to have Strickland challenge for the title again, overlooking undefeated contender Khamzat Chimaev, who ran through former champion Robert Whittaker.
Ultimately, Nicksick is disappointed his pupil didn’t put it all on the line in a rare opportunity to fight for the title. Whether he intends to fight his way back to the top or not is fine, but Nicksick would like answers on how Strickland intends to proceed from this point.
“There’s people in this sport that never even realize that potential to ever even be in the opportunity to fight for a championship,” Nicksick said. “That should be enough to get you motivated to get you off the couch. To me, we didn’t perform. It’s on all of us; it’s on me as a coaching staff, it’s on Sean.
“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.”
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This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Coach Eric Nicksick: Former UFC champ Sean Strickland ‘needs to evaluate what he wants to do in this sport’
