Sean
Strickland’s longtime coach, Eric Nicksick, recently reflected
on their brief falling out last year.
Strickland looked to reclaim his middleweight title in a rematch
against Dricus Du
Plessis at UFC 312 in February 2025. Strickland dropped a
lopsided unanimous decision against the champion. Nicksick
seemingly just failed to get his fighter going despite his best
efforts. The
Xtreme Couture coach subsequently lashed out at Strickland
publicly, calling the performance “underwhelming.” Strickland
responded, saying Nicksick would most likely not remain his coach
any longer. However, they buried the hatchet soon after, and
Strickland still continues to train under the tutelage of Nicksick
at Xtreme Couture.
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Reflecting on the brief spat, Nicksick recently admitted that he
deserves criticism. Nicksick revealed that he was also dealing with
a lot in his personal life, which, added to Strickland’s
performance, made him lash out at the former middleweight champion.
Nicksick doesn’t regret what he said as he believes he was accurate
with his analysis. However, Nicksick regrets voicing his harsh
opinion about his fighter publicly. Nicksick claims he and
Strickland had sorted their differences within days of the public
rift.
It Made Me a Better Person
“I think that that criticism was just,” Nicksick told MMAjunkie.com. “On a personal level I was going
through a lot in my life, my dad was battling prostate cancer, my
daughter was doing all these competitions, so I was missing a lot
of stuff at home. So that added stress to me as a coach, but also
underwhelming performance and knowing Sean was injured and all
these things. I took it out on a platform that I shouldn’t have… I
don’t regret what I said, because what I said was spot on. I regret
the platform that I said it on. But I learned a lot from that… In
retrospect, looking back at it, I am glad it happened. It made me a
better person because of me. Sean and me were literally fine a week
or two after.”
Nicksick has since guided Strickland (30-7) to an upset win over
Anthony
Hernandez via stoppage at
UFC Houston this past February. Strickland is now set to
challenge Khamzat
Chimaev (15-0) for the middleweight title in the main event at
UFC
328 on May 9 at the Prudential Center in Newark, New
Jersey.