Sean Strickland coach Eric Nicksick has no problem admitting that they would prefer not to fight Alex Pereira again.
Strickland got knocked out by a left hook from by Pereira at UFC 276 in 2022 after choosing to trade in the pocket with the former Glory Kickboxing champion. A lot has happened since then, with Pereira going on to win the middleweight title, lose it and then establish a title reign at light heavyweight. Meanwhile, Strickland also won the middleweight title in a huge upset against Israel Adesanya before losing it to Dricus Du Plessis via a narrow split decision.
Du Plessis recently defended his strap with a fourth-round submission win against Adesanya at UFC 305 in Perth, Australia, last weekend. While Strickland has been adamant on fighting for the title next, Du Plessis has attracted a lot of eyeballs with his latest performance — including those of Pereira. The light heavyweight champ expressed interest in moving back down to middleweight to challenge Du Plessis for the belt.
Nicksick was recently asked to weigh in on a potential rematch between Strickland and Pereira. And the Xtreme Couture head coach humbly admits that it a “nightmare” he’d rather not relive.
“That’s a nightmare,” Nicksick told Submission Radio. “That’s a nightmare, to relive that all over again. Just stay up there at 205 [pounds] man, do your thing up there. We’re good.”
Strickland sparred with Pereira after his knockout loss and admitted that while he can tag “Poatan,” the power is on a different level when the Brazilian lands. Meanwhile, Du Plessis coach Morne Visser expressed interest in a potential fight against Pereira, but at light heavyweight.
Ahead of UFC 305, Dana White said that Strickland deserved to fight the winner of the main event. However, Du Plessis called Robert Whittaker more deserving of a title shot than Strickland in his post-fight Octagon interview. While Nicksick doesn’t deny that Whittaker is always deserving of a title shot, he claims Strickland is the more deserving one by comparison. Nicksick argues that while Du Plessis only roped in a controversial split decision win against Strickland, he knocked Whittaker out cold at UFC 290 last year.
“I think Robert Whittaker is a guy who is always deserving of a title shot,” Nicksick said. “Especially when he is winning in the fashion that he is winning. But if push comes to shove, if you’re just comparing the two, two common opponents, Dricus finished Robert Whittaker and he arguably won a very close split decision versus Sean Strickland. So I think the fans want to see that finished. I think Sean has earned that right… Why go fight Robert Whittaker or Khamzat [Chimaev] or any of those other guys when we have a title fight waiting for us. If that’s the case then we’ll fight beginning of [next] year, end of December, whenever they tell us.”
