“Cursed of being an abused kid” – Sean Strickland opens up about feelings of inadequacy in the lead up to fight against Israel Adesanya

Former UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland opened up about his feelings of not being confident enough in the lead-up to his fight against Israel Adesanya. Strickland won the middleweight championship when he defeated Adesanya via unanimous decision at UFC 293 in Sydney, Australia. In the first defense of his title at UFC 297, 'Tarzan' sustained a split decision loss to now-champion Dricus du Plessis.

The 33-year-old has always been adamant that he beat du Plessis and deserved a rematch. Strickland's last outing in the octagon came against Paulo Costa at UFC 302 whom he beat via split decision.

The former champion is scheduled for a rematch against du Plessis at UFC 312 in Perth, Australia on Feb. 8. Speaking to Brett Okamoto about his upcoming title fight, Strickland opened up about feelings of inadequacy the last time he was in Australia ahead of the Adesanya fight. He said:

“The curse of being an abused kid you are born with natural low self-esteem like it doesn't matter what do in life you always look at yourself like a failure. Like Eric [Nicksick] asked me to bring my belt he wanted to show his daughters like a sports scene, I haven't looked at it since I won it. It’s been in the closet."

He added:

"I think it's like one of the curses of like having like low self-esteem is just you know when you're a kid dude and you're just a doormat your entire life. So every time I go in there it's always like this out this moment of like you know, do I really belong here . But I will die for what I want and I've lived my entire life on that.”

Check out Sean Strickland's comments below (1:50):

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Sean Strickland criticizes MMA judging criteria ahead of Dricus du Plessis rematch

UFC middleweight contender Sean Strickland slammed the MMA judging criteria ahead of his rematch against Dricus du Plessis at UFC 312. In the aforementioned interview with Brett Okamoto, Strickland asserted how a five-second takedown could entirely affect the outcome of a fight. He said:

“It’s such a stupid scoring criteria... Like, you could take someone down and keep them down for five seconds, how do you then score that? You get f*cking nothing, You took me down for five seconds, I get up and now I’m outstriking you. How the f*ck do you score that? As a whole grand scheme of a fight, what did that accomplish? Absolutely f*cking nothing, but the judges, ‘Oh, his back touched the ground. That’s a point.’ This ain’t f*cking collegiate wrestling, we’re f*cking fighting.”