Sean Strickland reveals his first fight was against an actual “terrorist”

Sean Strickland had an interesting opponent for his first fight.

Before Strickland was a pro-MMA fighter, he and a lot of fighters had “smokers” which are unsanctioned fights in gyms. Fighters just show up and don’t know who they are fighting until an opponent shows up.

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“I was, I think 15, back in smokers when there was no athletic commission to rob us and make us do bulls**t,” Schaub said on Brendan Schaub’s podcast. “They used to have smokers you just go to a gym, a guy had a cage and put some chairs in and would just f*****g fight whoever showed up.”

Having smokers is not an unusual thing to happen but the same can’t be said for Strickland’s first opponent, who was apparently an actual terrorist. When was asked how the fight played out, Strickland shared the following details:

“Actually, funny story it was with a f*****g terrorist. Straight up. I didn’t learn til after that this guy got arrested (for) Homeland Security s**t,” Strickland said. “I hit him in the face, I was scared s**tless, I broke his nose, (the) fight ended. If it wasn’t for that he probably would’ve kicked the s**t out of me when I was 15 but he was f*****g mid to late 20s.”

Given that this was a smoker, it’s uncertain who this opponent was or whether or not he actually was a terrorist. But, Sean Strickland says his opponent did get arrested by Homeland Security for terrorist actions.

Following some more smokers, Strickland turned pro and has since become a UFC fighter. The middleweight contender is set to headline a Fight Night card in December against Jared Cannonier as he looks to return to the win column following a KO loss to Alex Pereira.

What do you make of Sean Strickland revealing his first fight was against a terrorist?