Chris Curtis understands why his teammate Sean Strickland did what he did at UFC 276 against Alex Pereira, even though he probably wouldn’t have done the same.
Probably is a good word because Curtis has a similar mindset to Strickland. This is the mindset that all top-level fighters share, and it allows a jiu jitsu blackbelt to support a GLORY champion when a title shot comes up.
Strickland is also a very unique man.
“Sean is Sean, man,” Curtis, who faces Jack Hermansson at UFC London, said Monday on The MMA Hour. We had a clearly defined game plan, which we discussed in camp. At the end of the day, Sean is definitely a live by the sword, die by the sword kind of guy, and even more so than getting a title shot, I think [what was] important to him was testing himself and seeing where he was, and a lot of people won’t get that.
“But until you’ve been in there with some of the best in the world, you have people telling you you can’t do something. … They won’t understand sometimes, I hate to make it sound like this, but you all say that financially, it should be money before pride. But as a man in fighting, often times you will see that your pride comes first, for better or worse.
“You can’t fight without pride. A high-level fighter cannot exist without pride. Sometimes, this pride can be detrimental to us. But that’s what he chose to do, man, he wanted to test himself. It wasn’t what he wanted, but he tried. It has most of the times, but this time, it didn’t. Sometimes it is more important to win than know. He’ll be able to accept that. Although fighters can be very different from one another, it is more important to understand than win .”
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Strickland found out when he took a left hook to the jaw that sent him crashing to the canvas in the first round of the July 7 pay-per-view fight. His strategy was roundly mocked, easy pickings for the internet trolls he courted with his outspoken character. He was not one to spit on his opponent, but was rather humble in his post-fight video.
“Sean’s a black belt in jiu-jitsu, and Sean’s a good grappler, and his wrestling is very good,” Curtis said. “So were like, stay connected to him, don’t trade in kickboxing range, drag him down, wear him out, beat him up or submit him. Honestly, I figured Sean would TKO him. He would drag him down and lock him up. Then, he would drag him to a mat. Let him get up. Beat him on that mat.
“But Sean was like, ‘F*** your kickboxing, I’m going to kickbox you.’ So Sean goes and does Sean, because there’s nothing else you can expect from Sean other than for him to be Sean.”
Curtis might not be as brash as his teammate, but he is willing to risk everything perhaps to his detriment. That’s undoubtedly one of the reasons he agreed to fight ranked middleweight Jack Hermansson at UFC London on about two weeks’ notice, though he said a significant bump in pay didn’t hurt. Strickland was to be Curtis’ corner before he “lost” his passport, prompting a scramble that led to Darren Till – his former training partner and Hermansson’s originally scheduled opponent – to accept the job on Twitter.
One of Curtis’ friends suggested that he can go from promising middleweight middleweight to title contender in two fights. He can also lose, and be moved to the rear of the pack. It’s quite a scenario. Although he didn’t anticipate any of it, there is a certain freedom to take on a fight that you are supposed lose. Faster than others, he gets to know whether he’s ready for the top tier. The next question is whether he chooses the safest route to find out.
