"I was probably scared sh*tless" - When Sean Strickland revisited fighting a 24-year-old in his first ever bout as a teenager

Sean Strickland once revisited fighting a 24-year-old in his first bout as a teenager.

Strickland has been quite vocal about his troubled childhood. Brought up by an abusive father, 'Tarzan' always had issues dealing with anger. While speaking about it during an interview with Fox Sports ahead of his UFC debut in 2014, he revealed that MMA helped him become a better man and stated:

"My vice was anger. When I was younger, I had been kicked out of pretty much every high school I had ever been in. I went through life as a wrecking ball and then the older I got, I figured out what was more the cause of it, and I got past it, but I think if it wasn't for fighting, I'd be dead or in prison right now."

Furthermore, Strickland recalled how he used to train with former UFC fighter Paul Herrera when he first got into MMA. 'Tarzan' revisited a story when he was just about 15 years old and was made to fight a 24-year-old. He said:

"Paul Herrera, he used to fight in the UFC way back in the day, that's who I first started training with and he just kind of threw me in there. He was like 'Do you want to fight?' and when you ask a 14 or 15-year-old kid if they want to fight, of course they do. I mean I probably didn't even want to fight, I was probably scared sh-tless.

'He asked me and I was like 'I'll fight'. The first person I ever fought I was like 15 and he was 24 and I knocked him out, and I had eight of those and it kind of sucked me into it."

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Sean Strickland will defend his UFC middleweight title against Dricus du Plessis at UFC 297

Sean Strickland's story of becoming a world champion is nothing short of inspiring. He won the UFC middleweight championship against Israel Adesanya at UFC 293 last year. Despite walking into the fight as a massive underdog, 'Tarzan' managed to pull off one of the biggest upsets in the middleweight division to become the new champion.

For his first title defense, Strickland will enter the octagon against Dricus du Plessis this weekend. The UFC middleweight championship bout will headline the promotion's first pay-per-view of the year, UFC 297 which will go down at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, Canada.