Sean Strickland has made headlines this week for a number of comments he made during his pre-fight media availability and recently caught the fans' attention after making a request regarding Gina Carano and Paige VanZant.
The reigning middleweight champion made a comment regarding his stance on women's MMA as well as tomorrow night's co-main event between Raquel Pennington and Mayra Bueno Silva.
He recently took to his X account, where he mentioned that he is not looking forward to his weigh-in and faceoff and revealed the only instance in which he would be. He wrote:
"Another awkward face off coming up.... I just wanna know who said, 'let's get two guys, have them take off their clothes and tell them to look in each other's eyes, tip to tip'. The only time we ever think 'bring back Paige Vanzant and Gina Carano.'"
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Strickland's tweet caught the attention of a fan, who commented with a gif of Carano during a weigh-in and asked if that's who he was referring to. 'Tarzan' took notice and replied to the fan requesting that the UFC remove Pennington vs. Silva and add Carano vs. VanZant in its place. He wrote:
"Can we swap the co main lmao!"
Strickland's tweets likely won't get the support of tomorrow night's co-main event, but that won't stop him from continuing to share his unfiltered opinions on both fight-related and non-fight-related topics.
Sean Strickland favored in UFC 297 main event
The UFC recently posted a photo of the fight odds, according to DraftKings sportsbook, which showed that Sean Strickland is currently considered the betting favorite.
The middleweight champion is listed as a -135, while the challenger, Dricus du Plessis, is listed as a +114 underdog. Based on the odds, a $20 wager on Strickland to retain his title would result in a total payout of $14. However, the same $20 wager on 'DDP' to win would result in a total payout of $22.80.
The betting odds indicate that the UFC 297 main event is far from a mismatch, and so it will be interesting to see who walks out of Scotiabank Arena with the middleweight championship.