A related audio recording of the reigning UFC middleweight champion crying on Theo Vaughn’s podcast has gone viral online.
“I remember being in third grade, or no, second grade, and I fell asleep in my desk and the teacher came over and made me get up,” the American fighter revealed. “I was like, ‘fuck you,’ I was a little kid – I just laid down on the floor and fell asleep. The school system said, ‘Sean’s just a bad kid,’ but they didn’t realize that I didn’t get to sleep until three in the morning. Man, I remember lying in bed and I stopped believing in the Lord because of that crazy de**k.”
Sean Strickland grew up in a family where his father beat him and his mother, subjecting them to not only physical but also mental abuse. As a teenager, the American was influenced by his grandfather, who held neo-Nazi views, and one of his favorite movies was “American History X”, which tells about the environment close to him. According to Strickland, he was expelled from school in ninth grade for committing a racial hate crime, after which his mother decided to take him to an MMA gym. While training, the future UFC champion met people of color who helped him, and that motivated him to reject the ideology imposed on him.
Last September, Sean Strickland sensationally defeated Israel Adesanya by unanimous decision to take the UFC middleweight championship belt from the Nigerian, and the American will make his first defense on January 20 at UFC 297 in Toronto against South African Dricus Du Plessis.