SUMMARY
- Strickland is often seen in his intense sparring and training session videos.
- Sam Alvey shared his opinion on Strickland and being his former teammate.
Sean Strickland, the newly crowned UFC Middleweight Champion, and an internet sensation, garnered a lot of attention and a fan following in 2023. His blunt personality and openness towards the MMA community and media make him one of the most sought-after prospects in the UFC. Although behind the hype and the charisma, the champion is known to be putting in the hours at the gym.
Strickland is one of the hardest workers in the game, often seen through his intense sparring and training session videos. This has helped him evolve into an elite striker, which certainly supplemented his taking the title from former champion and elite striker himself, Israel Adesanya, at UFC 293. Let’s have a look at where the American Fighter trains.
Sean Strickland’s gym
Sean Strickland is known to train at Xtreme Couture Mixed Martial Arts. It was founded by former UFC fighter Randy Couture himself. Being one of the most popular gyms based out of Las Vegas. It has given the sport many iconic champions, such as Vitor Belfort, Francis Ngannou, and Alistair Overeem.
Established in 2007, the gym includes various established coaches and trainers. Such as Eric Nicksick, the head coach, Dennis Davis, the team coach, Ray Sefo, and Randy Couture. The middleweight is known to have joined the gym in recent years as a full-time. It is also affiliated with current active fighters such as Jiri Prochazka, Magomed Ankalaev, and Marvin Vettori.
Teammates and coaches share experience having the UFC Champion Sean Strickland in the gym
Before joining Xtreme Couture, the middleweight was supposedly in between gyms after having a fallout with UFC Hall of Famer Dan Henderson’s Team Quest facility in Temecula, Calif. This was supposedly due to some behavioral issues, which became a concern. Former teammate and UFC middleweight Sam Alvey shared his opinion on Strickland and being his former team partner.
Alvey stated, “When he was training at Team Quest, he was a wonderful teammate to me and the people that trained with him. The people that refused to train with him, [it’s because] Sean goes hard. There’s no, ‘We’re going to go 50 percent.’ No, it’s 100 percent or nothing”. This indicates Sean’s brawler and eccentric personality pushing himself and others to the limit.
His current head coach, Eric Nicksick, shared how Couture warned him about Strickland’s personality quirks. And how to handle the middleweight, although he did know him from part-time sessions. He further shared that he doesn’t pay much attention to Sean’s words outside of the context of fighting. And also towards his social media banters treating him only as a fighter.
His team captain, Brad Tavares, perceives it as a welcome change at the gym for newcomers who need a little more push. Former UFC fighter and sparring partner Max Rohskopf mentioned that time spent with Sean was always productive. He further complemented Strickland for having a big heart and being often misunderstood.