Sean
Strickland recently penned an emotional note in response to
digs taken at his abusive childhood by Sean
O’Malley and Dricus Du
Plessis.
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Ultimate Fighting Championship middleweight titleholder
Strickland recently engaged in a number of unpleasant exchanges,
initially with bantamweight champion O’Malley and then with Du
Plessis, against whom Strickland is scheduled to defend his belt at
UFC 297 next month. during the UFC’s seasonal press conference in
Las Vegas, meant to promote upcoming matchups from early 2024.
Strickland kicked off the banter by mocking
O’Malley for “trying to let dudes f— his wife.”
“Sugar” responded with an equally below-the-belt comment: “At least
my dad didn’t f— me.”
This prompted Strickland to go on a profanity-filled rant against
O’Malley until he was cut off by UFC CEO Dana White.
“Oh this fucking guy, man. UFC, whatever happened to you guys? We
used to have real men. And now we got the f—king clown over here.
Guy’s a f—king clown. He ain’t a f—king man,” Strickland said.
“Go and let dudes f—k your wife. This is f—king crazy, bro. We need
to bring back men to this f—king sport. Dana, what happened?”
Later during the presser, Strickland went after Du Plessis,
including, “Your coach will finish you in the back like you’re
f—ing used to.”
“Stillknocks” responded by taking a dig at Strickland’s abusive
past. The South African standout said, “You think your dad beat
the s–t out of you? Your dad doesn’t have s–t on me. Every
childhood memory you have is gonna come back when I’m in there with
you.”
Strickland subsequently posted a seemingly sincere note on
Twitter/X, blasting both O’Malley and Du Plessis for ridiculing
child abuse. He wrote:
“I expect nothing less from O’Malley and Dricus. Next time come at
me as a man… Clearly you don’t know what that means…… I just
wanna say one thing that I feel needs to be said. There are a lot
of kids out there who have been abused and molested and it’s a damn
tragic thing that forever changes you. How you function, how you
view the world, how you treat relationships, how you handle
addiction and for someone to put you down with that level of trauma
on a world stage is an utter disgrace. I have a big following of
people who suffered trauma, molestation and I will tell you that
it’s not funny to me, whatever you’ve gone through or have been
through isn’t funny to me…….. I hope you all understand that
these are weak men who don’t understand hardship, they don’t
understand what it’s like to live with demons… Forever a struggle
they will never understand.”