Sean Strickland jokes about canceled sparring session with Mike Jackson: “Would be like f*cking up a child”

UFC middleweight contender Sean Strickland really likes to spar, but only capable opponents.

‘Tarzan’ has been out of action since his main event against Nassourdine Imavov in January. In that outing, Strickland scored a unanimous decision win over ‘Russian Sniper’. That victory snapped a two-fight losing streak for the contender, having previously lost to Alex Pereira and Jared Cannonier.

Nonetheless, the middleweight contender is now slated to return in July against Abusupiyan Magomedov. In preparation for his return, there’s no doubt that Strickland is training and doing a lot of hard sparring. The middleweight is notorious for having hard sparring sessions, which is likely why he almost sparred with Mike Jackson.

‘The Truth’ was released from the UFC in January, ending a memorable stint with the company. Jackson faced the likes of Mickey Gall and CM Punk in his promotional run. However, it was his high-profile incident with Jake Shields at the UFC PI last year that generated many headlines.

Nonetheless, Sean Strickland reportedly reached out to the welterweight to spar, as he stated on his podcast. However, according to the middleweight contender, he called off the session after seeing Jackson’s professional record.

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(via Cooper Neil/Zuffa LLC)

“There’s multiple UFC fighters who I think [anyone] could f*ck up,” Sean Strickland stated in the conversation alongside Chris Curtis. “There are some UFC fighters that should not f*cking be in the UFC. They come into the f*cking gym, and I’m like, ‘How the f*ck are you here?’ Like, that one guy, the racist one, your buddy, the black guy? He hates Jake Shields?”

He continued, “Mike Jackson! So funny story about Mike Jackson, anytime I see somebody big, small, white, purple, brown, I’m like ‘Let’s f*cking fight’. I see him at the PI, and I’m like ‘Hey, we should scrap dude, you’re a welterweight, I was a welterweight and I’m at middleweight. Let’s see how big that d*ck is,’ right? So, I’m about to leave to go to spar him and I google his record, and I just call him like ‘Dude, I don’t have the self-control dude, this isn’t a good idea’.

“What do I do? I go there, and it would be like f*cking up a child. It would be like fighting a woman, I have no desire to do that.”

What do you make of these comments from Sean Strickland? Are you excited for his next fight?