Sean Strickland is already back in the gym despite barely being able to hold himself together physically after UFC 328. In a recent Instagram story, the new middleweight champion showed blood on his towel while explaining that he had just had his wisdom teeth pulled, has a “blown shoulder,” and is still training.
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“Hey guys, I got my wisdom teeth out Sunday; I got a blown shoulder, but we’re out here back training,” he said. “Putting it on these f—— p——. It’s gonna be a real hard couple of months for me, but, you know, gotta keep the demons away.”
The timing of the video makes the situation even crazier. Strickland reclaimed the UFC middleweight title at UFC 328 after a brutal five-round battle with Khamzat Chimaev, where he landed 123 of 312 significant strikes.
Such was the fierce one-on-one between the two that, according to Dana White, ‘Tarzan’ ended up getting his nose broken in the very first round of the fight.
😂💪 Sean Strickland has a blown out shoulder and just had his wisdom teeth out, yet is still in the gym as usual: “We’re out here putting it on these f*cking p*ssies Gonna be a hard couple months but I’ve gotta keep the demons away” (via Sean Strickland / IG)
“Yes, he broke his nose in the first round,” Dana White revealed during a Zuffa Boxing press conference.
Shortly after, the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board handed him an indefinite suspension pending orthopedic clearance for a left-hand injury. That doesn’t include the grade-one AC joint shoulder separation he sustained just days before the fight when sparring PFL’s Johnny Eblen.
“Funny story,” Sean Strickland said in the post-fight press conference. “So Tuesday I’m sparring Johnny, that motherf—–, the PFL champ [he is a former champion]. I’m at Plinio Cruz’s gym, and he f—— shoots on me. I hit this brick a– wall and I separated my shoulder.
“So I had a grade one AC joint separation on Tuesday, and I remember laying in bed on Tuesday night. I’m sure there’s a video of me somewhere slamming my shoulder—get some better pads! I was laying there and I couldn’t lay on my right.”
Still, resting clearly does not seem to exist in Sean Strickland’s world. ‘Tarzan’ has often stated that he trains to deal with his mental struggles, and the latest video looked less like a fighter unwilling to slow down, no matter how damaged his body becomes.
With Khamzat Chimaev already being obsessed with an immediate rematch, and Nassourdine Imavov waiting for his own title opportunity, Sean Strickland may not get much recovery time anyway. However, with all this training, he isn’t just possibly breaking his body down even further but also breaking his wife’s heart.
Sean Strickland denies his wife the ‘deserved’ vacation
That is what makes the latest Instagram clip even more ironic. Only days before posting the gym video with blood on a towel and injuries piling up, Sean Strickland was talking about finally taking a break from camp life and giving his wife Kimberly the vacation he believes she deserves following UFC 328. Instead, it seems like ‘Tarzan’ is heading straight back into another brutal training cycle.
Following his win over Khamzat Chimaev, ‘Tarzan’ revealed in a backstage interview how exhausting the last six months had been, not only for him but also for Kimberly.
“She’s been kind of a prisoner for the last six months,” he told UFC on Paramount. “So she deserves a break, I deserve a break, so I’ll take a little breather. Maybe we’ll bring her down to the White House card.”
“My girl deserves a vacation,” he added in another backstage interview on the same night. “Like, six months at camp. Like, we don’t go out and have fun; we don’t go to dinner; we don’t travel. She’s kind of been my rock, where, like, when I come back, she’s making my dinner, she does my laundry, and she does everything for me.
“So I’m gonna give her a little breather, take her on a vacation, and then get back to it. Anywhere she wants to go.”
To be honest, it was one of the more human moments Sean Strickland delivered in recent years. For someone known almost entirely for chaos, aggression, and controversy, he surprisingly admitted that Kimberly helped him realize he is more than just fighting and titles.
But now, with his body already clearly broken, an indefinite suspension hanging over him, and challengers lining up, it seems like the promised holiday is already slipping away. Because, even after winning the UFC title, ‘Tarzan’ appears to prefer fighting demons inside a gym to relaxing anywhere else.
