Eric Nicksick is owning up to his mistake.
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Nicksick recently admitted that criticizing friend and pupil
Strickland in public was the wrong decision. Strickland received a
lot of criticism in general for his lopsided unanimous decision
title loss against Dricus Du
Plessis at UFC 312
earlier this month. Nicksick later called Strickland’s effort uninspiring after
failing to motivate the former champ to push harder until the end
of the fight.
However,
UFC veterans like Daniel
Cormier and Matt Brown
didn’t approve of Nicksick publicly denouncing Strickland. While
recently commenting on the issue, Brown noted that there
might be a lot more to the whole thing than is visible to the
public eye. Regardless, Brown thinks the relationship between a
coach and fighter is too personal for their differences to be
publicly exposed.
Responding to Brown’s comments, Nicksick admitted to having a made
a mistake. While the
Xtreme Couture head coach says his real intention was to
motivate Strickland, he admits that it was a miscalculation.
“I agree, Matt, looking back at it I made a mistake,” Nicksick
commented on an Instagram post highlighting Brown’s comments. “My true
intentions were to try and motivate him publicly, and that was a
miscalculation on my part.”
Responding to Nicksick, Brown clarified that he was just expressing
his opinion.
“Understood,” Brown wrote. “It’s not really my business .I’m just
responding to questions asked of me about the news of the day.
Unfortunately, this was the news of the day.”
Nicksick said the former UFC welterweight’s opinion is really
valuable to him.
“Matt, you’re an absolute legend and you know your opinion is
important to me,” Nicksick wrote. “I appreciate that the first
thing you said was, “T’here’s probably more to this…‘ And whether
you agree or disagree with me, real friends will tell it like it is
because we care!! Respect!!”
Strickland also openly expressed his disappointment with Nicksick’s
comments, even stating that his longtime coach might no longer work his corner even if they
continue being friends. Strickland lost his strap to Du Plessis via
a close split decision at UFC 297 last year and earned a title
rematch with a split decision win over Paulo
Costa.