‘Dirty Canadian Leftists’ Cost Strickland The Title

To become the champ you gotta beat the champ … unless you’re fighting in a dirty leftist country like Canada.

Sean Strickland is still stewing over the judges’ decision that cost him his middleweight title against Dricus Du Plessis at UFC 297.

The January fight saw Strickland and Du Plessis go back and forth across five rounds. Strickland’s jab was on point and doing damage early on. Then Du Plessis caught Strickland with a punch that cut him above the eye. From there “Stillknocks” dragged himself back into the fight, finding more success with his big blitzing punches (watch the highlights here).

In the end it was a split decision for Du Plessis: 48-47, 48-47, and 47-48. Not only is Sean upset about the scores and the judges, he’s upset that the UFC hasn’t come back to him with a rematch offer.

“You know I don’t care about fight politics or a belt,” Strickland wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “But it makes me laugh they give Izzy a rematch to Alex [Pereira] after getting slept. I lost a close decision that Dana [White] himself thought I won. Everyone did. The stats did. That needs to be run back.”

“And man I don’t wanna pull this card but when does the Champ ever lose a close fight?” he added. “When you’re in Canada with a bunch of dirty f—ing leftists.”

This must be extremely upsetting to conservative fight fans, as it’s the second time one of their fighters has been robbed by leftist judges. Colby Covington claims anti-Trump judges scored his UFC 296 title fight for Leon Edwards due to political bias. One event later, the same thing happens to Sean Strickland due to leftist Canadian judges!

Well … we looked into it, and it turns out the UFC 297 main event was judged by the same gaggle of judges we see at most U.S. events: Derek Cleary, Eric Colon, and Sal D’Amato. Not that this should give fans more confidence in their ability to judge a fight. It just means it wasn’t the Canadians who screwed Strickland over. If you’re still looking for scapegoats, Cleary and D’Amato judged Edwards vs. Covington as well.

You don’t have to lean on conspiracy to note that the UFC is very selective when it comes to who gets an immediate rematch and who doesn’t. It usually follows who makes them the most money and causes them the least problems. Israel Adesanya? He’s gonna get a lot of rematches. Aljamain Sterling? Despite defending his belt three times, he’ll never get another shot at Sean O’Malley.

Although Sean’s UFC 297 title fight was close, the UFC has other plans for Dricus. The Izzy fight is right there, and that’s clearly what they’re going for. The good news: Strickland is in a very good position to fight whoever wins that one.