‘We’re Not Going To Abandon Him’

Coach of the year candidate Eric Nicksick says it was giving Strickland ‘a home’ that allowed him to grow as a martial artist and win the UFC middleweight title.

UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland fights Dricus Du Plessis at UFC 297 in Toronto, Canada this weekend (Jan. 20th, 2024), and he’ll have XTreme Couture’s Eric Nicksick in the corner with him.

Nicksick has been building up his reputation as a stellar coach for years, and 2023 saw him defy the odds by helping Strickland beat Israel Adesanya in a fight no one gave “Tarzan” a chance of winning. He followed that up a month later cornering Francis Ngannou to a razor thin split decision loss against Tyson Fury in boxing.

The impossible seems possible with Nicksick. At the start of 2023 no one expected Strickland to be champion. Now here he is in Toronto defending his title for the first time. How did Sean’s coach help take things to the next level?

“My whole goal is to give him a home first and try to help coach him after that,” he said in an interview with Shak MMA. “We’re not going to abandon him. We’re not going to leave him. We’re not going to kick him out. He has a place where he can be himself and be comfortable. I think by doing so it’s allowed him that room to grow as a martial artist and he’s in the position he’s at today because of the family he has around him now.”

“He’s really leaned on us. He’s leaned on his team. He got a little emotional today after practice because it was his last spar at Xtreme Couture. The words that he said, the thing that translates most to me is that he has a family now… The jist that I got is that, ‘I got a home. Thank you guys for giving me a home.’ I think that’s where a lot of people misunderstand him.”

It’s easy to misunderstand Strickland considering how quickly he vacillates between being a vulnerable everyman and violent psychopath. At UFC 296, Sean got into a brawl with Dricus in the stands. The incident didn’t surprise Nicksick, but he did tell his fighter this was exactly what Du Plessis wanted.

“I was actually headed home from the event,” Nicksick said. “The first thing I texted him was, ‘Did we win? How did we do?’ We had a chuckle back and forth. I get it. He’s a fighter. He’s a dude. He’s a meat eater. He’s going to be hopping on the chair. That’s just the way he is.”

“Then there’s the coaching element where I have to step in and say, ‘Look, this is what he wants from us.’ The best example I could possibly give was the guy who fought that night. I said, ‘Leon Edwards was poked and some foul heinous shit was said about this dad. Do you know what he did? He fought tactically and calculated and didn’t let his emotions overrun the fight.’”

“‘We’re not this type of fighter. We’re a tactical fighter,” Nicksick concluded. “I think if you fight with emotion that favors Dricus.’ He said, ‘Nope, you’re right. You’re absolutely right. Let’s stay on our course.’ And that was that.”

We’ll see if Strickland is able to keep his emotions in check through fight week and in the octagon on January 20th.