Sean Strickland has found a new target in his never-ending war of words with the MMA world, and this time, former UFC champion Tyron Woodley has been dragged into the chaos. ‘Tarzan’ recently tore into UFC veteran Din Thomas for the coach’s questionable choice of words while announcing his retirement from cornering in the aftermath of Gillian Robertson’s loss to Mackenzie Dern in their title fight at UFC 330.
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It seems Tyron Woodley wasn’t impressed with Sean Strickland’s criticism of Thomas. According to the screengrab Strickland uploaded on social media, ‘The Chosen One’ sent him a DM warning him to stop talking about his longtime coach.
“Watch your mouth talking about Din,” Tyron Woodley’s message read. “You have no clue wtf you’re talking about.
“We laugh all the time when you have no filter, but you are a habitual line crosser. I’m ride or die about him. Don’t cross that line.”
Sean Strickland’s response to Woodley was considerably less diplomatic.
“Bro, what are you going to do??” Strickland replied to him. “You aren’t going to do a damn thing lmao. Din can suck my c—.”
But that’s not all; the UFC middleweight champion then shared with him a screengrab of his recent losing streak, which included four consecutive UFC defeats and three boxing losses.
“Weak a—b—-,” Strickland added.
To add insult to injury, his caption to the post on X was equally blunt.
“Bro let the CTE get to him and forgot his record is a red line,” Strickland wrote.
The latest exchange adds to the long-running feud between Sean Strickland and Tyron Woodley, which has its roots in an entirely different controversy. The two had previously clashed over Jake Paul’s highly publicized $1 million sparring challenge in 2024. And while ‘Tarzan’ initially expressed interest in participating, he later stated that his UFC contract prohibited him from simply fighting or sparring anybody he wanted.
‘Tarzan’ claimed he met with UFC Chief Business Officer Hunter Campbell and learned that his contractual responsibilities barred him from accepting the challenge. However, Tyron Woodley strongly disagreed.
The former UFC welterweight champion stated that Sean Strickland was using the UFC as an excuse and that nothing was preventing him from sparring ‘The Problem Child.’
“Why the f— you ask, Hunter?” Woodley said on his YouTube channel at the time. “You asked your daddy if you can fight? You don’t have to ask anybody if you can fight. Legally they cannot stop him from sparring Jake Paul.”
Now we know why Sean Strickland’s recent response to Tyron Woodley looks so fitting. And while the Strickland-Woodley feud has been dormant at times, Din Thomas’ UFC 330 controversy has now brought it back to life.
In fact, Din Thomas’ retirement also led to an old clip of Colby Covington resurfacing and going viral again, where he also dragged in Tyron Woodley in his dig aimed at the former coach.
When Colby Covington used Tyron Woodley as ammunition to take aim at Din Thomas
Din Thomas and Colby Covington have their own history of animosity, dating back to Covington’s UFC 272 bout against Jorge Masvidal. ‘Chaos’ famously got into a physical altercation with Masvidal outside Papi Steak in Miami on March 21, 2022, only weeks after defeating his former teammate at UFC 272.
‘Gamebred’ reportedly approached Colby Covington outside a restaurant and attacked him twice in the face, leaving the fighter with a chipped tooth and abrasions. But while many MMA fans rallied around Covington following the incident, Din Thomas appeared unimpressed by the sympathy directed toward Covington.
“Reading Twitter this week, you would have thought @GamebredFighter ran up on Stephen Thompson,” Thomas wrote on X.
However, seeing how ‘Chaos’ thrives in trash talk, he wasn’t going to let it slide. During an ESPN appearance before UFC 272, the former coach asked Colby Covington whether he wanted to appear on his ‘Din’s Diaries’ show. Seeing the perfect opportunity, Covington fired back.
“Hey man, if you weren’t busy talking s— saying ‘I wasn’t about that life’ in the media, you know, I’d be down,” Covington said. “But, Din, you’re nothing more than Tyron Woodley’s Waterboy. So for you to talk s— about me is criminal.”
That old insult has now taken on a new life after Tyron Woodley himself came to Din Thomas’ defense against Sean Strickland.
The entire situation has resulted in an intriguing chain of rivalries: Strickland is now targeting Woodley, Woodley is defending Thomas, and Covington’s decade-old “Waterboy” taunt has reappeared, reminding everyone that the UFC analyst has been a part of MMA’s trash-talk ecosystem for years.
For now, Din Thomas has apologized to Robertson for the timing of his retirement announcement, but it seems like the controversy surrounding his UFC 330 appearance continues to generate plenty of fallout.