Given that he’s a high profile middleweight who is currently ranked No.7 in the division, some may be surprised that Sean Strickland is fighting the unranked Abus Magomedov in the main event of UFC On ESPN 48 this coming weekend in Las Vegas, and he’s now explained how the match-up came to be.
“I’m happy with Abus, but I don’t really know much about the guy,” Strickland admitted to reporters on Wednesday ahead of the fight on Saturday Night. “Do you have any pointers for me?”
“I had no idea who the f*ck he was,” Strickland continued. “So I’ve been hounding the UFC to fight, I even offered to do 205, but Mick (Maynard) didn’t want me to f*ck up the rankings because there are a lot of 205ers I’d f*ck up. So I had a conversation with Mick, and he pretty much offered me a couple of ranked guys. I said yes to them, they said no.
“So I had a choice: I either wait eight f*cking months or I f*cking fight. The money was right and here we are. I mean, we all fight for money. If the dollar is right, I will f*cking do it. We came to good terms and good pay, and here we are fighting Abus.”
The 32-year-old might not be a well known name in the weight class, but he is a talented fighter who holds a 25-4 career record and made an immediate impact in his UFC debut back in September of last year, TKO’ing Dustin Stoltzfus with a well placed front kick just 19 seconds in their fight.
That’s unlikely to phase Strickland though as he’s been going up some of the top fighters in the division for several years now, with his last fight back in January seeing him claim a unanimous decision victory over Nassourdine Imavov.
