Daniel Cormier pushes back on Eric Nicksick’s reaction to Sean Strickland’s loss: "You don’t get to coach only world champs"

Sean Strickland made his return to the octagon earlier this month as he unsuccessfully challenged Dricus du Plessis for the middleweight title at UFC 312, losing via unanimous decision. His lackluster performance led to plenty of criticism, including from Eric Nicksick, who is 'Tarzan's' head coach at Xtreme Couture Mixed Martial Arts.

Daniel Cormier recently weighed in on the comments made by Nicksick, stating:

"The only area that I think coach Nicksick was wrong was, 'I want to coach world champions.' Not everybody's going to be a world champ. You don't get to coach all world champs. You coach world champions. You coach guys that might get to the Contender Series and lose. You coach guys that might get to a LFA title and that be it. You might get a guy that comes to the UFC and has a cup of tea, 0-2 and he's out."

Cormier continued:

"You don't get to coach just world champions. I get the thought of what he's saying, but not everybody gets there. Make that your goal, but I don't know publicly if you say that."

Check out Daniel Cormier's reaction to Eric Nicksick's comments below:

Nicksick has been in the corner of several former UFC champions, including Strickland. The long-time head coach was clearly unimpressed with his fighter's performance in his UFC 312 title bout loss.

---

What did Eric Nicksick say about Sean Strickland?

Eric Nicksick was visibly irritated with Sean Strickland during UFC 312 as the fighter did not do much to adjust his game plan or listen to his corner. In the days following the bout, he appeared on The Ariel Helwani Show, where he stated:

"I think he needs to evaluate what he wants to do in the sport. If it's just to make money, then that's great. Let us know. I wanna coach world champions so my motivations are different. I think that just to kind of show up and do that and not really back it up, to me, was just kind of uninspiring."

Check out Eric Nicksick's comments on Sean Strickland below:

Strickland quickly took to social media to fire back at the comments from his head coach. He claimed that while they remain friends, Nicksick is unlikely to be in his corner going forward. The former middleweight champion received plenty of backlash for his lack of urgency and his willingness to continue utilizing a style that his opponent was clearly prepared for.