UFC forced to cut Sean Strickland's mic as Dana White speaks out
The UFC was forced to step in and cut Sean Strickland's microphone during the post-fight press conference following his latest win.
In the early hours of Sunday morning, former middleweight champion Strickland picked up a surprise knockout win over Anthony Hernandez in the UFC Houston main event.
Ahead of the fight, the American fighter made headlines after he went on a disgusting homophobic and sexist rant, causing outrage amongst fans and leading to calls he should be cut from the organisation.
During the rant, Strickland repeatedly used homophobic slurs to describe Bad Bunny's Super Bowl performance and claimed that women have been empowered “too much” to the point where they’ve “ruined society".
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It wasn't the first time that the 34-year-old has made controversial comments, and it appears that the UFC may have finally had enough of his behaviour as they shut off his microphone when he was speaking to the media following his win over Hernandez.
Following the win over Hernandez, Strickland, who is currently the no.3 ranked middleweight, has put himself firmly in contention for the next shot at current champion Khamzat Chimaev.
In light of this, Strickland was asked to address his title chances after he had been ranting extensively about various different topics.
But, following his previous comments about Chimaev, the UFC reacted quickly and suddenly cut his microphone before he could say anything else that may land the organisation in bother.
Despite that, Strickland went on to answer the question, saying: “Yes, I think I did enough. You don’t want to see any of these motherf****** fight the little Chechen w***, you want to see the last f****** American in the sport go and f*** that guy up and that’s what’s gonna happen.
“I’ll bring a f****** goat and he’ll get distracted.”
Recent rumours suggested that Strickland, or whoever the next middleweight contender may be, would potentially have to wait a while to fight Chimaev, who was reportedly planning to move up to light heavyweight to challenge for the title.
However, UFC President and CEO White quickly shut down those reports, saying that he would rather see him defend his title before thinking about going up a weight.
But that wasn't the only thing that White said during the post-fight presser, as he gave his thoughts on Strickland's controversial comments before the UFC Houston card.
Dana White speaks out following Sean Strickland's controversial rant
In recent years, White has regularly spoken out defending fighters' rights to free speech without any policing from the UFC, even in the case of Bryce Mitchell and his pro-Hitler comments.
Despite this, the UFC boss admitted that it was becoming increasingly difficult to work with Strickland, blaming the media for asking questions to deliberately set the controversial American fighter off.
"It’s a nightmare, but (the media) doesn’t help," White claimed.
"Asking him dumb s***, ask dumb s***, get dumb s***. ‘What do you think of Bad Bunny? What did you think of the Super Bowl?’ Get the f*** out of here. You f****** kidding me?
"So yeah, when you talk about what Strickland says, you like to push the buttons."
Topics: UFC, Sean Strickland, Dana White, MMA, Khamzat Chimaev
Ben McCrum