Luke Rockhold (photo via YouTube)

By FCF Staff

Sean Strickland has grown his fanbase considerably over the last couple of years, but it’s clear Luke Rockhold isn’t a fan of what the polarizing middleweight says or how he fights.

In recent years, Strickland has made innumerable headlines with controversial quotes and key victories, including a decision win over Israel Adesanya last September to win the UFC’s middleweight title. More recently, Strickland recorded another decision victory over Paul Costa at UFC 302, in a fight that failed to deliver on expectations.

Since then, Rockhold spoke with The Schmo. While discussing Strickland (29-6), the former Strikeforce and UFC champ didn’t hold back in his criticism (quotes via MMA Fighting.com).

“I’m not a fan,” Rockhold said. “He puts on the most boring fights of all time. He’s a fake, he’s a fraud. I think he’s f*cking acting up there. I’ve heard he’s got social media managers telling him what to do and telling him what to say. Let’s try to be a little more real, boy.”

“Sean acts like he’s all, ‘I’ll f*cking go to the death,’ and he puts on this hillbilly f*cking right-wing f*cking bogan attitude when he’s really just a f*cking b*tch,” Rockhold also argued. “You ain’t gonna fight to the death. You go out there and you put on the line like the last five f*cking seconds of every fight and you sit there and you walk around like a f*cking stupid nut-cracker kicking and punching like an idiot.”

The 39-year-old Rockhold (16-6) hasn’t competed in MMA since August, 2022, when he lost via unanimous decision to the aforementioned, Costa. The defeat was Rockhold’s third straight.

Since then, Rockhold has incurred a TKO (retirement) loss to Mike Perry in a 2023, Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship bout, while this past April, he KO’d Joe Schilling in a Karate Combat fight.