Sean Strickland wants more money, Dana White’s roster wants him to defend the middleweight belt, and somewhere in the middle of that standoff, Demetrious Johnson picked up a microphone on Tim Welch’s show and explained how he once got out. It’s a great story, maybe the strangest transaction in modern MMA. It’s also close to useless as a blueprint, and Johnson seems to know it.
Start with where Strickland is. He took the 185-pound title back from Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 328 in May, and White has said Strickland signed a new contract shortly before that fight. So the paper is fresh. Reports, as Essentially Sports laid out, have the proposed defense against Nassourdine Imavov stalled over money, with a heated confrontation adding heat to the whole mess. Strickland has floated boxing, including a Jake Paul fight, and he framed his frustration around legacy and pay.
“The UFC builds a legacy; they keep you right here, but they build a legacy, and they don’t pay you enough, so you have to come back and ruin your legacy. I just don’t want to do that,” Strickland said.
That’s a real complaint, and it’s one I’d take seriously from a guy who has never been shy about poking the promotion. He’s previously gone after the UFC over his alleged exclusion from the White House event. This is a fighter who says the quiet part on camera.
The trade that happened once
Johnson’s 2018 exit is the reason anyone asked him. He’d defended the flyweight title 11 consecutive times, felt the company never backed him properly, and fought with the brass over a proposed T.J. Dillashaw bout, specifically weight-cut concerns and financial protections. Then he lost the belt to Henry Cejudo. According to Johnson, the UFC was considering a third Cejudo fight. He wanted out instead.
“I was traded. I asked the UFC for my release,” Johnson said.
He described the UFC agreeing to let him go but wanting something back. Ben Askren was retired at the time and under contract with ONE Championship, and the UFC’s read on him, per Johnson, was simple: “Ben Askren has a mouth. He can generate a lot of noise.” So the two promotions swapped. Johnson went to ONE, Askren came to the UFC, and everybody got a headline.
Johnson was careful to frame it as his choice. He asked first. The trade came after.
Here’s my problem with anyone reading that as a roadmap for Strickland. The UFC has never made another deal like it with ONE. Not one. That swap needed a perfect alignment: a champion-level name who had just lost his belt, a rival promotion holding a loud, marketable fighter the UFC actually wanted, and both sides seeing value at the same moment. Johnson even hedged on how it would go for Strickland, saying the UFC could find a trade partner or “they can just release him.” That second option is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
The belt is the leverage, until it isn’t
The part of Johnson’s comments that should matter most to Strickland got less attention than the Askren anecdote. Johnson pointed out what the UFC does when a champion won’t fight: it strips the title or creates an interim belt and keeps the division moving. Middleweight has bodies. Imavov is sitting right there.
Think about what that means for a negotiation. Right now, Strickland is the champion, and a champion who sits out is a headache. A stripped champion who sits out is a guy on a freshly signed contract with no belt and no fight date. Every week the Imavov fight doesn’t get booked, his strongest card gets a little weaker.
Johnson’s actual advice, reported by Essentially Sports, was boring in the best way. Honor the commitments. Finish the remaining bouts. Build the negotiating position by fulfilling the deal, and then, once the obligations are met, look at boxing if the money there is better. That’s the guy who held a belt through 11 defenses telling the current champ that patience pays more than a public standoff.
I think he’s right, and I’d go further. Strickland’s best shot at a bigger number, or a cleaner exit, runs straight through Imavov. Win that, and he’s a two-time champion with a defense on his record and a fanbase that tunes in to hear what he’ll say next. That’s a fighter you trade for, or pay to keep. Sit out, get stripped, and he becomes a contract the UFC can simply wait out.
The precise terms of Strickland’s deal remain unclear, so nobody outside the room knows how many fights are left. That’s the number that decides everything. Johnson got his release by asking at the right moment with the right partner waiting. Strickland’s right moment, if it comes, probably arrives with his hand raised after Imavov, holding gold he refused to give back.
