Sean Strickland's "class act" reaction to Dricus du Plessis loss sparks mixed fan comments on X - "He played his part of the script"

Sean Strickland's classy reaction after losing to Dricus du Plessis has sparked mixed reactions from fans.

Strickland and du Plessis squared off this past weekend, and while many believed that 'Tarzan' would emerge victorious if the fight went to the later rounds, that wasn't the case, as du Plessis came away with a split-decision win. Their bout later won Fight of the Night honors.

Notably, when the scorecards were read inside the octagon, Strickland was respectful despite the narrow loss. The former UFC middleweight applauded after Bruce Buffer declared the winner and even congratulated his South African counterpart, showing no dissatisfaction with the result.

Take a look at the clip below:

While Strickland did mention in his post-fight interview that he felt he did enough, he didn't take away from du Plessis' title-winning moment in the cage. As the clip started to garner a lot of attention online, fans were quick to express their thoughts on it.

Take a look at some of the reactions below:

"Strickland is a true professional, people just hate that he's vocally against their political ideology."

"Strickland a class act? Who knew? I love this fighter! @SStricklandMMA"

"He played his part of the script."

Fan reactions

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Joe Rogan reacts to Dricus du Plessis' win over Sean Strickland at UFC 297

The result of the Sean Strickland vs. Dricus du Plessis bout has seemingly caused a lot of stir online. There's a raging debate about who deserved to win at UFC 297, as many believe that du Plessis didn't do enough to take the belt from 'Tarzan'.

UFC color commentator Joe Rogan also does not seem to be fully convinced with the result. While reacting to the fight during a live watch-along episode of The Joe Rogan Experience for UFC 297, the 56-year-old had this to say:

"Wow. Interesting. Very interesting. I wonder how the people online feel about that. Because, you know, we're not scoring it while we're watching it. We're watching it, we're just having fun. Were we wrong? It was good. Listen, fourth round [du Plessis] did awesome... I definitely think he won the fourth but do you think he won the fifth? I don't know, man, the fifth seems like Sean was landing more shots... Interesting. Tough fight, though."

Catch Joe Rogan's comments about Sean Strickland vs. Dricus du Plessis below (00:45):