Jack Hermansson’s a poet, and we didn’t even know it.
Hermansson (22-7 MMA, 9-5 UFC) dropped a split decision to Sean Strickland (25-3 MMA, 12-3 UFC) in the UFC Fight Night 200 main event at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas on Saturday. He has alternated wins and losses for six fights now and couldn’t build on a decision win over Edmen Shahbazyan from May 2021. The win for Strickland was his sixth straight in the middleweight division.
And while the official result might imply to some the fight was close, the 48-47 score Hermansson got in contrast to the two 49-46s for Strickland was an outlier. Not one of the media outlets tracked by MMADecisions.com had the fight in Hermansson’s favor. Nearly half, including MMA Junkie, scored the fight 50-45 for Strickland.
Hermansson posted on Instagram early Sunday to apologize for his performance and called attention to one presumed game plan he couldn’t pull off: takedowns.
His apology came in the form of a cleverly worded poem.
“I’m sorry fans, about tonight,” Hermansson posted. “I had a bad performance, and I lost the fight. It wasn’t pretty, or technically sound. I couldn’t get the bastard to the ground. Sorry Sean this one went to a decision. Best of luck to murder your next competition.”
Strickland took notice and responded in the comments.
“Thank you man it was an honor. I hope we meet again! True warrior …,” Strickland wrote.
Hermansson, a former Cage Warriors middleweight champ, came to the UFC in 2016 and won three of his first fight fights in a 13-month stretch. He then went on a four-fight run that culminated with a win over Ronaldo Souza in his first UFC headliner in April 2019.
But since then, it’s been up and down with setbacks against Jared Cannonier, recent title challenger Marvin Vettori and Strickland. He has a first-round submission win over former title challenger Kelvin Gastelum in that stretch, as well as his win over Shahbazyan.
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