Sean Strickland provides update on severely broken nose as he explains ‘silver lining’ to brutal UFC 312 loss… ‘I love the misery’ – Bloody Elbow
After months of fighting talk, Sean Strickland devastatingly came up short against Dricus Du Plessis at UFC 312, closing the book on their longstanding rivalry.Following their first meeting at UFC 297 last January, Sean Strickland constantly labeled the result against Dricus Du Plessis as a ‘robbery’ which opened up the door for a rematch.Despite only picking up a win over Paulo Costa since then, Strickland was controversially awarded another title shot, although Du Plessis favored a fight against Khamzat Chimaev.The South African went on to retain his title with a dominant performance over Strickland, breaking Strickland’s nose in the fourth round, putting a final stamp on their feud.READ MORE: Dricus Du Plessis explains gameplan for potential Khamzat Chimaev fight as he names surprising preferred locationFollowing the fight, Du Plessis and Strickland embraced, seemingly putting their rivalry to bed with ‘Stillknocks’ now 2-0 up over the 33-year-old former champion.The fight was seemingly over as soon as Du Plessis landed the huge right hand directly on the nose of Strickland as he attempted to push it back into place.The two then crossed paths backstage and the champion told Strickland he was ‘even uglier’ now with a broken nose as the two briefly touched on their rematch.The broken nose was a huge talking point of the fight and UFC boss, Dana White, has commended Strickland for not letting it distract him in the final round.“I’ll tell you something fascinating that I noticed tonight for the first time, I don’t know why. Strickland, the way that he acts leading up to fights, normally when you have people that act the way he acts, you see signs of it in the fight.“Who is more focused, professional, and solid in a fight than he is? When he gets hurt, no sticking out the tongue or ‘No that didn’t hurt me’, the guy stays focused, keeps coming forward, there’s never any hint of how he acts outside the Octagon when he’s in there. Absolute professional the whole time, it’s actually fascinating,” White said in the post-fight press conference.Although Strickland was unable to reclaim middleweight gold again, he has kept in good spirits following his loss and has even attempted to draw out the ‘silver lining’ to his loss.“Guys, we’ve been here once or twice,” Strickland said as he broke his silence on social media.“Dricus, hats off, a hell of a fight man, you broke my nose in like six places, the silver lining is my nose is so broken that it’s really easy to reset so that was a new experience. “Losing sucks but we all lose in life… I love the misery, I love the suffering because when you’re miserable when you’re in pain and suffering, the moment that’s gone… life’s good,” he continued.A post shared by Sean Strickland (@stricklandmma)The middleweight division is seemingly experiencing a change of tide at the top of the division, with young fighters like Nassourdine Imavov and Caio Borralho making their way toward the top.Fellow former middleweight champion, Israel Adesanya also recently suffered a devastating defeat which has left his career in limbo too.Despite both Adesanya and Strickland showing signs of regression and potentially falling out of the middleweight title conversations, Du Plessis believes now could be the perfect time for them to run it back.“I know what’s gonna happen next. I can almost guarantee you what’s happening next. Are there any bets that he’s fighting Adesanya next? Yeah, I just thought of that… I think the Adesanya rematch will be amazing, yeah, that’s what’s gonna happen, it’s gonna be a Fight Night main event,” Du Plessis said at the post-fight press conference.
