Following his loss to Dricus Du Plessis in the UFC 297 main event, former champion Sean Strickland released a statement alleging that Du Plessis had headbutted him during the match. In another social media post, Strickland blamed the loss on the headbutt and attached a video.
“Well f**k haha… man that headbutt really made it difficult to see but I thought we got the job done. Blood and all!!! Onto the next one!!! Thanks everyone who supported me,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
In the second post Strickland stated, “We all know I won… The only reason why it wasn’t one sided for 5 rounds is the headbutt took my eye….. Wasn’t touched till the blood took my vision..”
Well fuck haha… man that headbutt really made it difficult to see but I thought we got the job done. Blood and all!!! Onto the next one!!! Thanks everyone who supported me!!!!!!
— Sean Strickland (@SStricklandMMA) January 21, 2024
We all know I won… The only reason why it wasn’t one sided for 5 rounds is the headbutt took my eye….. Wasn’t touched till the blood took my vision.. pic.twitter.com/CLvcURLzWT
— Sean Strickland (@SStricklandMMA) January 22, 2024
Former two-division UFC champion Henry Cejudo isn’t buying what Strickland is saying. After watching the fight and the incident in question, Cejudo believes Strickland was cut before it occurred. He also wouldn’t consider what happened a ‘headbutt.’
“If this is a headbutt, I don’t know what to tell you. But he was already leaking,” Cejudo said on his YouTube channel.
“He was already leaking on that side and it was the fact that he (Du Plessis) pretty much came up. If you call this a headbutt then f**k I’d be headbutting everybody. That’s not it. He was already leaking. It’s unintentional, but it wasn’t enough to say, hey, he headbutted me,” continued Cejudo
Cejudo scored the fight for Du Plessis, saying, “I thought he was the clear winner.” The former Olympic Gold Medalist scored Strickland winning the first and last rounds with Du Plessis winning rounds two, three, and four.
https://www.mmaweekly.com/news/henry-cejudo-weighs-in-on-alleged-ufc-297-main-event-headbutt
