Former middleweight champion Sean Strickland isn’t happy with the direction of the UFC and believes fighters are being underpaid.
The controversial and outspoken fighter pointed to the fact the fight promotion only has one American champion, women’s bantamweight titleholder Kayla Harrison, as proof the organization is mishandling talent.
“It’s so offensive, dude that there’s just so many f**king Muslim. No, guys. Don’t even get me f**king started on this sh*t. America, the UFC started in America by a Brazilian, but they’re kind of Americans,” Strickland told MMAJunkie.
“It just kind of annoys me too that like the direction the UFC goes, they just outsource. And like even this is moving forward, like I mean they just outsource UFC to these poor countries and these guys go fight for 10 and 10 on the Contenders and they go back and live in Rio and they just made 20 or 30 grand living like f**king kings,” continued Strickland.
“It’s like you’re really limiting the U.S. market because you’re not paying these guys any money. So you’ve got little f**king little Joachim Jackson who has a choice, go play f**king football, or go be a UFC champion. That man’s going to go play football. Like 10 (thousand) and 10 dog. Like, what are you going to do, go pay rent for like three months? Then you’ve got to pay your coaches, your management. So it annoys me that we have outsourced UFC so much to these f**king poor ass foreigners. The entire roster is from Durka-Durkastan.”
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“At what point do you not give a f**k,” Strickland questioned. “Once there’s no more Chuck Liddell‘s, once there’s no more like Jon Jones‘, so you really want to watch Ankalaev, Maga-maga-maga-maga-maga. I don’t give a f**k, dude. I don’t give a f**k if you’re the best fight in the world. I’d rather go watch a hockey game and watch an American.”
The fight promotion sold in 2016 for a staggering $4 billion. The company recently inked a 7-year deal with Paramount for a price tag of $7.7 billion, but Strickland is skeptical whether fighters will see any of the profits.
“It’s hard because I love UFC, and I can’t complain because I’m in a position in my life that is so f**king good. But it’s like they f**k athletes, 100%. One-hundred percent they f**k athletes,” said the former champion.