He's the little stepbrother I never wanted - Israel Adesanya respects Sean Strickland for speaking his mind "regardless of the repercussions"

Israel Adesanya has a "weird" respect for Sean Strickland. The UFC middleweight champ respects Strickland for speaking his mind irrespective of the repercussions. Also one to speak his mind freely, 'The Last Stylebender' claims that the surging middleweight contender is like the little step brother he never wanted.

Being managed by the same firm as Strickland, Israel Adesanya believes that 'Tarzan's' unfiltered comments are sometimes a cause for concern for Paradigm Sports.

During the recent UFC media day, Sportskeeda MMA's James Lynch asked 'The Last Stylebender' whether he was open to fighting Strickland if he managed to defeat Alex Pereira at UFC 276 this weekend. The middleweight champ replied:

"Yeah. I like Sean Strickland, man. He's like the little step brother I never wanted. It's a weird, like, respect. I respect the guy cause he just speaks his mind. I speak my mind too but he speaks his mind regardless of the repercussions. We're under the same Paradigm management team and yeah, I'm sure sometimes they have a headache with some of the stuff he puts out. But I respect the fact that he speaks his truth whether I like it or not. You know, freedom of speech in that right in the great of US&A. Yeah, so I respect that."

Watch Israel Adesanya weigh in on Sean Strickland below:

Strickland was banned from Twitter due to his transphobic comments during the pride month. More recently, the middleweight contender explained his absence from Instagram stating that the platform has 'n*tless men'.

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Sean Strickland believes his UFC 276 matchup against Alex Pereira is the UFC's ploy to give 'Poatan' a title shot against Israel Adesanya

Sean Strickland's upcoming opponent Alex Pereira has two wins over Israel Adesanya from their Glory Kickboxing days, including a 2016 KO. Despite having only two fights in the UFC, 'Poatan' is already being considered for a title shot should he get his hands raised against 'Tarzan'.

Strickland believes that his UFC 276 matchup against Pereira is purely a ploy by the UFC to propel the Brazilian towards title contention. 'Tarzan', unsurprisingly, did not mince his words after being invited to the UFC 276 presser.

According to Strickland, Pereira was pitted against him so that the former Glory champion could avoid being dominated by a wrestler. 'Tarzan' also revealed that he might choose to wrestle come Saturday night. The 31-year-old said during the UFC 276 media day:

"If we learned anything about UFC rankings, they mean nothing at the end of the day. He’s the one that knocked out ‘Izzy’ so it’s like, ‘Here’s what you can do.’ You can have him go and he’ll eventually fight a wrestler who will take him down and beat him and then they’ll never get the ‘Izzy’ shot, or they could be like, ‘Hey, why don’t we have him fight Sean? Sean doesn’t like to wrestle. Maybe if he beats him, we can float him to the top.’ So this is purely just a ploy by the UFC to put him against somebody who likes to strike to potentially get him an Izzy shot. So, UFC, I applaud you. I might f**king wrestle.”

Watch Sean Strickland's appearance at the UFC 276 presser below: