Luke Rockhold Recalls Watching Sean Strickland Spar: ‘He’ll Try to Kill You’ 

Luke Rockhold is of the opinion that Sean Strickland is not the safest training partner.  

  It is no secret that Strickland likes hard sparring and has even bragged about breaking multiple noses in the past. Former middleweight champ Luke Rockhold recently recounted Strickland’s visit to RVCA in Costa Mesa, California, where “Tarzan” allegedly went over the line with a sparring partner. 

  “He’s just that guy that doesn’t care,” Rockhold told the JAXXON Podcast. “He’ll try to kill you. Sean Strickland walked into RVCA one time and he was such a loud mouth idiot, I was like, ‘Who the f—k is this guy?’ I was so hungover, so annoyed, I was like, ‘F—k, I’m going to get in a spar with this guy, I can’t even take it.’ But I had seen him... he hurt a guy in the gym. He hurt him with a head kick. 

  “With like 30 seconds left, he wobbled him. And [the coach] was like, ‘Keep going, finish out the round.’ Instead of what most people would do which is try to work with him — especially when you’re on somebody else’s turf — Sean went straight back to that head kick and tried to knock him out multiple times. There’s 30 seconds left in the round, the kid’s done, show yourself as a f—-ing man and try to finish the round rather than just go back to the well and knock him out.”

  Strickland lost his middleweight championship against Dricus Du Plessis at UFC 297 earlier this month via split decision. Meanwhile, Rockhold parted ways with the promotion on a three-fight skid in 2022 and then went on to suffer a lopsided battering against Mike Perry in a bare-knuckle clash at BKFC 41.