Sean Strickland fires back with five-word response to being trolled over influencer sparring

The highly-anticipated sparring session between Sean Strickland and social media influencer Nick Nayersina finally happened. Unsurprisingly, it was more of a beatdown than an actual sparring session.

This is the second time Sean Strickland sparred with an influencer who called him out. A year ago, Strickland mauled influencer Sneako after the latter thought it was a good idea to get in the cage with the unhinged former champion.

Implying that beating up influencers might be a guilty pleasure for Sean Strickland, X user @PCStricklandMMA posted a video of an elated Jose Aldo with the caption:

"Sean Strickland when an influencer shows up wanting to spar:"

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Minutes before sparring Strickland, Nayersina kept on saying that he's doing all this because he's on a "fitness journey", eliciting laughter among the fighters present. 'Tarzan' sarcastically echoed this in his reponse to the above-mentioned tweet:

"We're on a fitness journey"

Check out Sean Strickland's post below:

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What exactly happened during Sean Strickland and Nick Nayersina's sparring session?

If you want to know what exactly transpired during the sparring session between Nick Nayersina and Sean Strickland, don't fret. The influencer unsurprisingly posted the entire thing on YouTube.

The video opened with Nayersina being friendly and chatty with everyone in the gym. Strickland's coach Eric Nicksick was quite confused as to why the social media star - with no fight experience - decided to call out one of his best fighters.

After arriving at the gym, Strickland went on his social media and recorded himself talking about Nayersina. He said:

"I don't know this motherf*cker [Nayersina]. You apparently do know me, dude, coz you've been hitting me up for f*cking months."

Nayersina said that he only called out Strickland for the Navy SEAL training because he's on a "fitness journey". 'Tarzan' then said:

"But then you're like, 'I like the influencer life. I want to be f*cking famous. I like to influence life, so I'm going to go around and try to be f*cking famous'. Bro, this is who you are, dog. So let's glove up and get on with this."

Check out the video below (3:56):

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Duane is an expert MMA writer at Sportskeeda with over 10 years of experience working for the likes of Philippine Star, Esquire Philippines, Playboy Philippines, etc. A major in English, he has written over 2000 articles for Sportskeeda section, extensively covering UFC and boxing fights.

Duane is a practicing MMA fighter with a 11-7 record. He is also a Brazilian jiu-jitsu purple belt and trains Muay Thai. His connection with MMA dates back to 2005, when he turned into a fan after watching Fedor Emelianenko defeat Mirko ‘Cro Cop’ Filipovic at Pride FC - Final Conflict 2005.

Emelianenko finds himself right at the top of Duane’s Mt. Rushmore of MMA fighters, alongside other big names like Demetrious Johnson, Jon Jones, Georges St-Pierre, and Anderson Silva.

Duane’s love for the sport is reflected in his writings, where he believes in speculating but not insinuating. He uses his intensive knowledge and skills in MMA to provide unique insights to the readers, along with sourcing information only from reliable sources.

Outside of work, Duane enjoys martial arts training, visual arts, film criticism, video games, and creative writing.

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Edited by Tejas Rathi