Sean Strickland is apparently not handling losing the title rematch to Dricus Du Plessis well. ‘Tarzan’, of course, stunned everyone by utterly dominating Israel Adesanya at UFC 293 to become the new middleweight champion. Alas, the celebrations were short-lived as he lost the title to Dricus Du Plessis in his very first title defense at UFC 297 in a close fight.

Their rematch, however, was the Du Plessis show as the champ battered ‘Tarzan’ at UFC 312 to retain the title. And Strickland has apparently been relaxing and taking things easy after the one-sided loss, which is apparent from the fact that he recently revealed that he was 230 pounds at the moment.

Which is forty-five pounds over his middleweight division limit of 185 pounds. For context, that means Strickland will have to lose nearly twenty percent of his current body weight if between now and his next fight. At the moment, Strickland could make heavyweight easy, but since he isn’t really known to have any weight-cutting issues like Alex Pereira did at 185 or Ilia Topuria did at 145, his dramatic weight gain is likely to be temporary.

Of course, the American former champ isn’t in camp at the moment and doesn’t have a date either, so it is good to see him take some time off to properly deal not only with the physical but also the mental toll a loss like that must have taken on him. But fans, as you can imagine, found Strickland’s blow-up hilarious.

Fans react to Sean Strickland’s dramatic weight gain

One fan felt could do nothing but just marvel at the sheer amount of weight Strickland had gained: “45 lbs weight cut is crazy is more than ilia to fw.”

Another fan was reminded of Strickland’s infamous heated sparring session with streamer Sneako, and was amused by the fact that Strickland wasn’t able to sleep the streamer despite going all-out and having the overwhelming weight advantage: “Bro’s a weight bully and cannot even ko Sneako”.

One Instagram user found it both hilarious and dishonorable that Strickland would cut so much weight and fight opponents at 185: “So what you’re really saying is, Sean Strickland is a coward that cuts down to 185 so he can fight guys smaller than he is, is that what I’m hearing? 🤔🤣🤣🤣😉”.

Another fan rightfully compared Strickland’s blow-up to lightweight star Paddy Pimblett’s legendary nearly fifty pound weight gain after his fights:  “He’s on that paddy diet”.

Another felt that the epic beating Dricus Du Plessis put on Strickland at their UFC 312 rematch continues to affect him and is the main reason behind his dramatic weight gain: “DDP fucked him up 😂”. What do you think about Sean Strickland’s dramatic weight gain?