The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) has some of the best MMA talents in the world. Although he does not have a UFC belt yet, Sean Strickland is undoubtedly one of the best mixed martial artists in the game. Fans are often distracted by his controversial comments. It takes all the attention away from how good of a competitor Strickland really is inside the Octagon.
Sean has been around the blocks for a long period of time. He is a strong wrestler and made his MMA debut in 2008 against Tyler Pottett for King of the Cage. He had 13 successive fights in the promotion and won the middleweight title. Sean also remained unbeaten during the run and it built up a lot of hype around him as a huge prospect.
Strickland’s chance to fight in the UFC finally came in 2014, when he took on Bubba McDaniel at UFC 171. Although his unbeaten run came to an end against Santiago Ponzinibbio in February 2015, Tarzan still had a great run in the UFC, with notable victories over Brendan Allen, Krzysztof Jotko, Uriah Hall, and Jack Hermansson. But, most of the time, Sean is in the headlines for his questionable antics.
Who is Sean Strickland dating?
While his public persona is outlandish, former UFC middleweight title contender Chael Sonnen revealed that Sean is a very nice person in his private life. There is a lot of mystery surrounding his dating life. However, on October 15th, 2022, Sean posted a photo on his Instagram account, which sparked rumors about Sean’s love life. Strickland was on a boat with a beautiful woman.
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However, there is no word about the identity of the woman. Prior to that, Sean was having a flirtatious interaction with adult film star Karma RX. They had a back-and-forth on Twitter which made fans think that Sean was dating the pornstar. However, he rubbished the stories in a press conference.
“No, one of these days, maybe when she retires and I retire, we’ll get it going… But I mean, how do you—girl f***in’ sucks d**k for a living, bro. What do you say? Like, she just got a bunch of dudes c***in’ in her and you’re like, ‘Hey, wanna go on a date, babe? Wanna go get a steak dinner? As she’s cleaning off her lip.” (h/t via MMA News)
However, in 2024, it was revealed that Strickland was indeed in a relationship. While not much information is available about her, Sean’s rumored girlfriend went by the initials of ‘KJ’. Because of Strickland’s eccentric personality, many fans were caught off-guard by Sean’s admission that he indeed had a girlfriend.
During an interview in 2023 with Helen Yee, Strickland added, “Guys, I have a girlfriend, who I love very much. I said it. She makes me a better man, you guys. You know what? And every time, and I was just telling her this the other day, I’d tell my girl. I’m like, ‘Babe, every time I think about breaking up with you and I think about all the p**** I can get, I think about who I was before I met you.'” (h/t via Sportskeeda)
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However, they had a fight where the former UFC Middleweight Champion admitted that they nearly broke up. But it was not clear whether Sean was joking about it or not. The topic of their fight was a hypothetical scenario about him potentially killing someone and going to prison.
Strickland’s parents had an abusive relationship
The middleweight fighter had a very tough upbringing. Although Strickland did not reveal the identity of his parents, Strickland did allude that he had a very rough childhood. Strickland especially had a bad relationship with his father. In an interview with Ariel Helwani during an appearance on The MMA Hour, Sean gave a vivid description of the abusive relationship his parents shared.
Apparently, Sean’s father was an extremely irritable man. He used to abuse Sean’s mother on a regular basis and Strickland once smashed a guitar over his father’s head while the man was abusing his mother. He never got along with his father and labeled his father as a “monster.” On one particular occasion, Sean had enough and took matters into his own hand.
“I f*cking headbutt him, break his nose. He falls down like f*cking crying and I’ll never forget the monster, the boogeyman of my life, just watching him fall to the ground crying, holding his nose, f*cking bleeding. It was almost disappointing. It was disappointing, I expected so much more from him.” (h/t via Middle Easy)
Sean later disclosed during an episode of the “Food Truck Diaries” that his father died in his 50s due to cancer. The 31-year-old revealed that his parents were separated by the time his father died.