Roman
Dolidze and Sean
Strickland needed outside intervention when they first sparred
together.
Advertisement
Dolidze and Strickland are now teammates at the
Xtreme Couture gym in Las Vegas. While Dolidze now understands
Strickland better, things weren’t always this cordial between the
two middleweights.
Strickland is known for expressing his unabashed and controversial
opinions on everything under the sun. Dolidze previously couldn’t
fathom the former champ slamming his own family over issues like
child abuse. However, the Georgian gradually stopped being critical
of Strickland as he understands the difference in their
upbringings.
In signature fashion, Strickland also went unnaturally hard at
Dolidze in their very first sparring session. According to Dolidze,
Strickland’s need to test every new guy in the gym stems from his
own insecurities.
“In beginning I was very critical with him,” Dolidze recently told
Home of Fight. “We had like bad argument but no
more. First of all, I know we’re raised different and I can’t
criticize him just because he’s raised different… He sees [the]
world like this and there are certain things [that] make him like
that… First time when I saw him in sparring – he’s the type of guy,
when he see someone new, he wants to test it. Because I think first
of all he’s proving himself. That’s his fault. And first time when
we see each other, it was sparring day, we fought, like it was bad.
People stopped [us].”
Strickland will try to reclaim the middleweight title against
Dricus Du
Plessis in the main event at UFC 312
at the Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney, Australia. Meanwhile, Dolidze
headlines his first ever UFC card in a rematch against Marvin
Vettori at
UFC Fight Night 254 on March 15 at the Apex in Las Vegas.
Dolidze is coming off consecutive victories over Anthony
Smith and Kevin
Holland that saw him bounce back from losses against Vettori
and Nassourdine
Imavov.