Daniel Cormier has some sympathy for Sean Strickland, and he isn’t alone. MMA Junkie reported Friday that the former two-division champion expressed empathy for Strickland in his dispute with the UFC. That came at the end of a three-day stretch in which the middleweight went from grumbling to filming what amounted to a resignation video. My read is that the empathy is earned. Strickland’s complaint is coherent. His plan is the part I’d send back to the drawing board.
Here’s the sequence, because it moved fast.
On Wednesday, Oct. 7, Championship Rounds posted a clip of Strickland saying he was considering vacating his belt and moving up to light heavyweight to finish out his deal. “Contemplating just going to 205, knocking out my contract and scrapping with Jake Paul,” he said. That same night in Las Vegas, Nassourdine Imavov ran into him, and the exchange went sideways in about four seconds. “What is your problem? You not sign the contract?” Imavov asked, before adding, “Money? I have money, I give.”
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A few hours later, Paul posted a list of names he wants before he retires. Strickland was on it, between Conor McGregor and Darren Till. Paul then asked him directly whether he was out of contract and told him to have his promoter call MVP. Strickland answered on X that he hadn’t decided whether to nuke the contract, but that hitting Paul sounded better than the UFC at the moment.
Thursday brought the video. Strickland said he’s done with the UFC and wants to box, and he laid out the money argument in plain terms: “They don’t pay you enough money to walk away.”
Why the complaint lands
The line from that video that stuck with me is this one: “The UFC builds a legacy, they don’t pay you enough so you have to come back and ruin your legacy.” Take away the delivery and that’s a precise description of how a fighter’s career runs down. You win the belt in your prime. The paydays aren’t big enough to retire on. So you keep taking fights into your late thirties against younger men who were in grade school when you turned pro, and the highlight reel ends with you getting finished. Anyone who has watched a great wrestler’s takedowns get stuffed by a 26-year-old because his hips are a half-second late has seen this happen.
That’s the ground Cormier is meeting him on, and I don’t think it requires agreeing with Strickland about anything else he’s ever said. The argument holds up even with Strickland making it.
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Why the plan doesn’t
Now the strategy. Strickland has floated two exits, and they pull against each other.
The first is boxing. In the video he said he’s “trying to work that out” with the UFC, and if they refuse, he’ll “stick and move.” So boxing is the request, and the UFC is the party that gets to say no. Asking permission while sounding defiant gives him no leverage at all.
The second is the 205 idea, which I find more interesting because it’s the only option on the table where Strickland keeps fighting inside the contract. Vacate, move up, take the remaining bouts, then go box Paul on the open market. The issue is that it costs him the one thing that gives him bargaining power, which is the belt. Once a champion walks away from his title, he’s a light heavyweight newcomer working off his last fights, and the UFC has no reason to pay him more for that.
The Imavov encounter shows what the division does in the meantime. Contenders don’t wait for contract talks to finish. They find you in a Las Vegas parking lot and ask why you haven’t signed. Every week Strickland spends filming videos, the 185-pound queue gets louder and the promotion gets more comfortable with the idea of an interim title.
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Paul, for his part, has made his interest easy to read. He named Strickland publicly, tagged Nakisa Bidarian, and pointed him to MVP. Strickland admitting he hasn’t decided is also the most honest thing he’s said all week, because it confirms the contract still binds him and the Paul fight is still hypothetical.
So Cormier is right to feel for him, and Strickland is right about how the pay system wears down its champions. But a fighter who wants out on his own terms needs a clear exit he can actually take, and right now he has two half-plans and a belt he keeps threatening to drop. If he really vacates and books a 205 debut, I’ll believe the boxing talk. Until he does, this reads like a negotiation being conducted on X.
