Sean
Strickland coach Eric Nicksick has no problem admitting that
they would prefer not to fight Alex
Pereira again.
Advertisement
Strickland got knocked out by a left hook from by Pereira at UFC
276 in 2022 after choosing to trade in the pocket with the former
Glory Kickboxing champion. A lot has happened since then, with
Pereira going on to win the middleweight title, lose it and then
establish a title reign at light heavyweight. Meanwhile, Strickland
also won the middleweight title in a huge upset against Israel
Adesanya before losing it to Dricus Du
Plessis via a narrow split decision.
Du Plessis recently defended his strap with a fourth-round
submission win against Adesanya at UFC 305
in Perth, Australia, last weekend. While Strickland has been
adamant on fighting for the title next, Du Plessis has attracted a
lot of eyeballs with his latest performance — including those of
Pereira. The light heavyweight champ expressed interest in moving
back down to middleweight to challenge Du Plessis for the belt.
Nicksick was recently asked to weigh in on a potential rematch
between Strickland and Pereira. And the
Xtreme Couture head coach humbly admits that it a “nightmare”
he’d rather not relive.
“That’s a nightmare,” Nicksick told Submission Radio. “That’s a nightmare, to relive that
all over again. Just stay up there at 205 [pounds] man, do your
thing up there. We’re good.”
Strickland sparred with Pereira after his knockout loss and
admitted that while he can tag “Poatan,” the power is on a
different level when the Brazilian lands. Meanwhile, Du Plessis
coach Morne Visser expressed interest in a potential fight against
Pereira, but at light heavyweight.
Ahead of UFC 305, Dana White said that Strickland deserved to fight
the winner of the main event. However, Du Plessis called Robert
Whittaker more deserving of a title shot than Strickland in his
post-fight Octagon interview. While Nicksick doesn’t deny that
Whittaker is always deserving of a title shot, he claims Strickland
is the more deserving one by comparison. Nicksick argues that while
Du Plessis only roped in a controversial split decision win against
Strickland, he knocked Whittaker out cold at UFC 290 last year.
“I think Robert Whittaker is a guy who is always deserving of a
title shot,” Nicksick said. “Especially when he is winning in the
fashion that he is winning. But if push comes to shove, if you’re
just comparing the two, two common opponents, Dricus finished
Robert Whittaker and he arguably won a very close split decision
versus Sean Strickland. So I think the fans want to see that
finished. I think Sean has earned that right… Why go fight Robert
Whittaker or Khamzat [Chimaev] or any of those other guys when we
have a title fight waiting for us. If that’s the case then we’ll
fight beginning of [next] year, end of December, whenever they tell
us.”