Sean Strickland came to Edmonton to watch fights. He very nearly ended up in one on a sidewalk.
The UFC middleweight champion was walking the streets of Edmonton with his phone out this week when a group of homeless people decided he was recording them. Video circulating on X shows them confronting Strickland and then chasing him down the road. One of them delivered a warning that sounded less like a threat and more like a free safety briefing: “that’ll get you killed out here.” According to MMA Mania, the group had no idea who he was. In fairness to them, a guy filming you on a city block is a guy filming you on a city block, belt or no belt.
The chase clip was shared by the Happy Punch account on Oct. 15. Strickland posted his own footage from the area that same day with the caption “5 Canada dollars gets you high. Not a bad price,” which tells you roughly how seriously he took the whole thing.
It also wasn’t his first round of street filming. MMA Mania noted that Strickland had been recording homeless people in the city since he arrived earlier in the week. On Oct. 14 he posted a video of a man lying motionless and wrote that he was fairly confident the man was dead, or at least recently assaulted. The outlet said that, judging by the footage, he might not have been exaggerating.
Strickland traveled north to take in UFC Edmonton, which goes down tonight (Sat., Oct. 17, 2026) at Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta. He hasn’t been touring alone. He’s been posting videos around town with Anthony Hernandez, a former opponent who now appears to be his sightseeing partner. One clip shows the two of them on a stroll through a park, with Strickland narrating that he was “Taking my Mexican friend to do white things.”
The trip comes on the heels of a public fight with the UFC over his contract pay. MMA Mania reported that the dispute has only made him more popular with fans, which tracks for a champion whose brand has always been saying the quiet part at full volume. None of the coverage so far points to a booking for his next title defense, so for the moment the Edmonton content is the main event of his week.
My take: I’ve lost money on worse propositions than a bet on Sean Strickland walking around a rough downtown block with a camera and something happening. I’d have laid heavy juice on that one and slept fine. The guy is the middleweight champion of the world and he’s in a public pay dispute with his employer. The smartest thing he did all week was run, and I mean that as a compliment. Whoever did the chasing showed decent pace over a short distance and a sound read on the situation. They also had zero interest in who held the belt. Edmonton’s card goes off tonight at Rogers Place, and I suspect the first person Strickland films there will at least know his name.
