UFC legend reveals bitter truth behind Sean Strickland's loss to Dricus du Plessis, slams criticism on 'Tarzan's' performance: "Game don't change" 

Sean Strickland recently faced Dricus du Plessis at UFC 312 for the UFC middleweight title. After a grueling five rounds, he came up short and lost by a unanimous decision. A former UFC legend shared his thoughts on the fight and trashed the critics for criticizing Strickland's performance while revealing the reason behind his loss.

The pair fought for the first time at UFC 297 where 'Tarzan' entered the octagon as the defending champion. After a closely fought showdown, du Plessis was declared the winner by a split decision. However, a section of MMA pundits and Strickland himself believed he had won the fight.

The duo ran it back in a rematch in the recently held pay-per-view event where Strickland again suffered a loss by unanimous decision. His loss drew sharp reactions from the MMA fight experts and MMA fans alike.

Chael Sonnen reacted to the criticism on his YouTube channel and detailed Strickland's loss by saying:

"The rules to the game don't change. I hit you, I don't let you hit me. I kick you, I don't let you kick me, that's the game. Behind all your fancy fight camps and strategies, and footwork, and experience, and different colored belts, I hit you, I don't let you hit me. That's all we are doing out here. At the end of the night we are gonna total that up."

Sonnen continued:

"So, it was not a matter that Sean got away from a strategy or a game plan. Dricus was a little better under the unified rules of touching Sean than Sean was touching him but that's what we set out to find out. I got it wrong that Sean would be better at touching Dricus than getting touched so what? I'm not understanding what people think they had ataken from them."

Check out Chael Sonnen's comments on Sean Strickland below (5:03):

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Sean Strickland addresses the criticism for his UFC 312 loss after Eric Nicksick's comments

Sean Strickland's loss at the hands of Dricus du Plessis in a high-stakes UFC middleweight title showdown evoked criticism from multiple quarters. His coach, Eric Nicksick also joined those criticizing Strickland and publicly expressed his disappointment in The Ariel Helwani Show for his performance against du Plessis.

This prompted 'Tarzan' to issue a statement and address the reasons behind his defeat. Taking to his Instagram, the former UFC middleweight champion posted a video in which he revealed the fight camp and his struggles while leading into the fight:

This is not an excuse, but that entire camp was a struggle of, ‘I’m good,’ knowing you’re not good. I was in Colombia like eight weeks out, seven weeks out getting stem cells on a broken bone. Bone healed fine, not an excuse, it just kind of weighs in the back of your head. I was training with de Ridder, the submission guy, and he hit me with a whizzer, and it was already broken, but dude, I thought my arm f*cking snapped.

Strickland continued:

"I was like, ‘I’ve got to go to f*cking Colombia, this is f*cked.’ All camp this is just in the back of your head and you’re just telling yourself, ‘I’m f*cking good.’ … But all camp, whether it be the staph infection, the broken arm, the having to get a VISA that didn’t get approved until a week, not knowing if I will get cornermen out there. This entire camp was a struggle of like, ‘I’m not good.’ But look in the mirror and say, ‘Sack up."

Check out Sean Strickland's statement below: