{"id":921880,"date":"2026-10-09T13:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T13:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/921880\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T13:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T13:36:09","slug":"strickland-threatens-boring-fights-over-ufc-pay-youll-boo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/921880\/","title":{"rendered":"Strickland threatens boring fights over UFC pay: \u2018You\u2019ll boo\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sean Strickland says a lot of crazy things, and then often says the exact opposite a day later. So there was always a decent chance that his blow-up towards the UFC<\/a> would be a temporary thing, and he\u2019d settle down after getting a good night\u2019s sleep and maybe a small bump to his champion\u2019s pay.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t seem to be the case, though. Yesterday, \u201cTarzan\u201d was complaining about the UFC\u2019s payscale and threatening to \u2018nuke\u2019<\/a> his contract with the promotion. Today, he\u2019s still ripping into the company regarding their pay, saying the UFC doesn\u2019t pay its fighters enough to retire \u2014 not even its champions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI fought for the title four times, I won it twice, beat all the boogeymen in the division,\u201d Strickland said in a new Instagram video. \u201cHell, I fought half the division already, man. I want to box. I want to go put a f–king boxing title on my mantle. I deserve it. I don\u2019t even do MMA, I just box.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI will put hands on any boxer. Jake Paul wants to give me a big, old bag of money to fight him. I\u2019m under contract. Fine, I\u2019ll go Zuffa. I\u2019ll go beat your cruiserweight champ easy.\u201d<\/p>\n

That would be Jai Opetaia,<\/a> two time IBF champ and current WBA, Ring and Zuffa world title holder. Jai is a perfect 31-0 in boxing while Strickland is 0-0, so we don\u2019t know what world Sean exists in where he can bop in and beat Jai.<\/p>\n

We may not agree with Strickland\u2019s assessment of his boxing skills, but he\u2019s pretty spot on with his latest indictment of the UFC\u2019s pay practices.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me tell you something about the UFC and I\u2019m going to say the quiet part out loud that nobody says,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019ll go, you watch these champions, right? These savages of the sport, man. They run the division, and they take an L and then they come back, and they just fight like three or four times. They get f–king flatlined. You\u2019re like, \u2018Dude, what happened to you?\u2019 And you realize the UFC happened. They just don\u2019t care anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe UFC, they don\u2019t pay you enough money to walk away like, \u2018Man, life is f–king good. I\u2019ve dedicated my life to this. I put the time in this.\u2019 The UFC builds a legacy. They keep it right here, but they build a legacy, and they don\u2019t pay you enough. So you have to come back and ruin your legacy. I don\u2019t want to do that, man.\u201d<\/p>\n

But while Strickland doesn\u2019t want to do it, he will if he has to.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just not in it anymore,\u201d he continued. \u201cI want to fight. I want to box. I want to go win a boxing title. So we\u2019re trying to work that out. But if the UFC says, \u2018Hey, we\u2019re not going to do that. We\u2019re going to make you fight.\u2019 Well, I\u2019m going to stick and move. You guys are going to boo. Hell, I\u2019ll f–king boo with you while I\u2019m doing it. Just stick and move, collect my check, and then move on. But I mean, hell, here we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

More bluster from one of the most blustery men in the UFC? Or is Strickland really ready to fight the worst damn fights ever to make a point about fighter pay? Sean\u2019s bouts were already on the duller side of the spectrum<\/a> before this threat. We\u2019d hate to see what he has planned if he doesn\u2019t get his way. And let\u2019s be clear: there\u2019s no chance the UFC lets him go fight in Zuffa Boxing. So what happens next? We see how committed Sean is to this bit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sean Strickland says a lot of crazy things, and then often says the exact opposite a day later.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":921881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85,1396],"class_list":["post-921880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=921880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/921881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=921880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=921880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=921880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}