By FCF Staff

Sean Strickland’s performance at UFC 312 has been widely criticized, and the middleweight’s head coach, Eric Nicksick, understands why.

Strickland faced Dricus Du Plessis for the second time at the event, and ended up losing via a clear-cut, unanimous decision. While Strickland demonstrated his toughness later in the fight, by battling through a badly broken nose, the outspoken fighter fought cautiously throughout the contest. Even when his corner pleaded with him to change his tactics and to fight more aggressively.

Since then, Nicksick was a guest on “The Ariel Helwani Show”. While discussing Strickland’s performance, the renowned coach agreed that the former champ failed to deliver (quotes via MMA Fighting.com).

“We have to be real,” Nicksick said. “It just was a very underwhelming performance in an opportunity fight for a title. There’s people in this sport that never even realize that potential to ever be in the opportunity to fight for a championship, that should be enough to get you motivated to get you off the couch. It just to me was he didn’t perform.

“It’s on all of us. It’s on me as a coaching staff, it’s on Sean, and I think he needs to evaluate what he wants to do in this sport. If it’s just to make money, then that’s great, let us know. I want to coach world champions, so my motivations are different. I think that just to show up and do that and not really back it up, to me was just kind of uninspiring.

During the interview, Nicksick also confirmed that Strickland had been battling a staph infection prior to the fight. But, the Xtreme Couture coach doesn’t believe that the infection played a key factor in the result. Leading up to UFC 312, Strickland (29-7) insisted that the outcome would be different from his split decision loss to Du Plessis last January.