Not like his fighter, Eric Nicksick didn’t maintain again.
Nicksick was in Sydney this previous Saturday to teach and nook Sean Strickland in the principle occasion of UFC 312, which ended with Strickland delivering a dud of a efficiency en path to a unanimous determination loss to middleweight champion Dricus du Plessis.
Strickland has confronted an avalanche of criticism for his listless outing, particularly within the wake of his common pre-fight bravado wherein he claimed he was keen to combat du Plessis to the demise. On Wednesday, Nicksick appeared on The Ariel Helwani Show to deal with the criticism, a few of which he agrees with.
Has the criticism been truthful?
“We’ve got to be actual,” Nicksick stated. “It simply was a really underwhelming efficiency in a chance combat for a title. There’s folks on this sport that by no means even notice that potential to ever be within the alternative to combat for a championship, that must be sufficient to get you motivated to get you off the sofa. It simply to me was he didn’t carry out.
“It’s on all of us. It’s on me as a training workers, it’s on Sean, and I feel he wants to judge what he needs to do on this sport. If it’s simply to earn a living, then that’s nice, tell us. I wish to coach world champions, so my motivations are totally different. I feel that simply to indicate up and do this and probably not again it up, to me was simply type of uninspiring.”
Nicksick welcomes a dialog with Strickland concerning the former UFC champion’s future targets and whether or not he’s critical about difficult for the title once more. He additionally praised Strickland for nonetheless exhibiting as much as the health club this week and being an excellent teammate.
However the fallout from Strickland’s loss is prone to be felt for a while and Nicksick nonetheless isn’t precisely certain what went unsuitable on combat night time.
“It was simply uninspired combating to me,” Nicksick stated. “It simply appeared like he was sleepwalking. It was powerful, I used to be simply attempting to dig him out of it by the rounds. I didn’t know if he was attempting to gather knowledge at first or if it was only a gradual begin or what was happening, however because the rounds started to progress, I may simply I didn’t really feel like he was in the way in which many of the instances that he’s. It was powerful.
“It was a tricky 25 minutes to journey all the way in which on the market and let’s not overlook, it is a title combat. I take these title fights very severely. I used to be simply dissatisfied. I used to be dissatisfied with the entire whole consequence, the entire combat as a course of, simply thought it was simply type of flat.”
Luke Rockhold, one other former middleweight champion, spoke to Helwani on Monday and he called Strickland “fake” for speaking such an enormous recreation and falling so flat when the bell rang. Although Nicksick doesn’t dispute the tough phrases being thrown his fighter’s manner, he nonetheless believes Strickland wasn’t himself at UFC 312.
“[Rockhold is] proper to say that on this explicit combat,” Nicksick stated. “I feel that it’s a broad brush to color after one combat. It wasn’t our night time, it was very flat, very uninspiring night time, however I don’t assume that’s essentially Sean as a fighter.
“We’ve seen him in these wars, we all know he’s able to it. So simply to say that ‘He’s not that man,’ yeah, he wasn’t that night time, that’s for certain.”
P4P. Zhang Weili is again at No. 1 on MMA Fighting’s Pound-for-Pound list.
Ache. Dominick Cruz explains just how bad his latest injury was to persuade him to retire.
Counterpoint. Matt Brown doesn’t assume Sean Strickland’s UFC 312 efficiency is made any worse by his pre-fight trash talk.
Onward. Tatiana Suarez plans to get again on the championship observe sooner or later after a humbling loss to Zhang Weili.
Dates. The UFC introduced its plans for International Fight Week and the PFL has a location for its first four events of 2025.
Completely happy Trails. Veteran featherweight Bill Algeo has announced his retirement.
Execs react to UFC 312.
UFC Vegas 102 pre-fight prep.
Fighter vs. Author. Damon Martin speaks to Matt Brown concerning the criticism surrounding Sean Strickland’s efficiency at UFC 312, plus what to make of a possible matchup between middleweight champion Dricus du Plessis and Khamzat Chimaev.
Belal >>> DDP?
Noggin.
Two of the P4P prime 3.
Ranked.
I assume it is a factor now?
That may’t be authorized.
Completely happy Birthday!
OK, we’ve had loads of Sean Strickland bashing this week, however did anybody count on the decision to come back from inside the home? That is his personal coach publicly questioning whether or not he really needs to combat at a championship degree anymore. That’s obtained to harm, I don’t care how thick your pores and skin is or how oblivious you might be to criticism.
Then once more, it needs to be requested: Was Eric Nicksick slightly too trustworthy in his evaluation of his fighter? Ought to some conversations be saved behind closed doorways? Or is it truthful recreation contemplating that Strickland himself has zero filter?
Tell us within the ballot under.
Ballot
Did Coach Nicksick cross a line along with his Sean Strickland critique?
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