An angry exchanged during a training session between UFC middleweight Sean Strickland and Brazilian Jiu-jitsu’s ADCC champ Orlando Sanchez has been caught on camera.
The incident happened at Jason Parillo’s Team RVCA gym and saw the two working from the clinch position until Sanchez, a 5ft 9″, 300lb’er known as ‘The Cuban Tree Stump’ attempted to quickly hyper-extend the underhooked arm of his 185lb training partner.
Strickland reacted with fury to what he deemed to have been a “d**k move”, retaliating by throwing a spinning backfists followed by a push kick to the gut of Sanchez, who tried to feign innocence afterwards, though soon after appeared to hint at prior bad blood between the two when he said, “you talk all that sh*t about how I don’t belong here and then you get mad at me because I hit a quick little submission?”
Strickland was particularly angry about the move as he has a big headlining fight against Uriah Hall coming up at UFC Fight Night 191 on July 31st, and soon after had to quit the training session, complaining that “my arm’s f*cked”, while clutching at his forearm.
However, it seems that Strickland is now trying to laugh off the incident and suggests that he’ll be training again with Sanchez later this week.
“Soo who was the bigger c*** here? Me or @orlandogb72 ??!?!” Strickland wrote on Instagram alongside the video. “Lol And yes there will be a rematch Friday lol!!!”
Strickland is currently enjoying his best spell in the UFC so far, having put together a four-fight winning streak against Nordine Taleb, Jack Marshman, Brendan Allen and Krzysztof Jotko to earn his first main event in the promotion.
As for Sanchez, he won the super-heavyweight division of ADCC submission grappling back in 2015 and has a 5-0 (+1nc) record in MMA, but hasn’t fought in the past six years.
