Sean Strickland doesn’t think too highly of former UFC middleweight champion Robert Whittaker.
Whittaker (25-7 MMA, 15-5 UFC) suffered a second-round TKO loss to Dricus Du Plessis (20-2 MMA, 6-0 UFC) earlier this month at UFC 290, where he claimed that he didn’t show up.
Strickland (27-5 MMA, 14-5 UFC), who could be closing in on a title shot soon, was not impressed with Whittaker’s performance.
“Whittaker kind of looked like sh*t, man,” Strickland told Helen Yee. “I think it’s kind of weird. I think everybody thought Whittaker kind of looked like sh*t. Maybe Dricus is that awkward that he made him look like sh*t. But like, Whittaker’s just this one-trick pony. Whittaker can fight, but he is a one-trick f*cking pony. The moment that f*cking trick doesn’t land, and now it comes down to fighting in the pocket – when it comes to doing anything else besides a karate blitz, he doesn’t really have it.
“He did some sh*tty shot. I think Whittaker, whenever that karate blitz wasn’t landing, he started having those f*cking wheels start spinning, like, ‘Oh man, the thing that I do to everybody is not working. What do I do now? I guess we wrestle.’ And that didn’t work. It’s like, ‘What do we do now?’ When you’re a one-trick pony and that one trick works a lot, it’s f*cking great. But when it doesn’t work, it’s time to f*cking do the man dance.”
With champ Israel Adesanya insinuating that No. 1 contender Du Plessis can’t make UFC 293 on Sept. 9 in Sydney, “The Last Stylebender” called for Strickland to face him, but Strickland wants an increase in pay before jumping into the title opportunity.
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 290.
