Even Sean Strickland has his limits.
The almost always unfiltered UFC middleweight champion rarely bites his tongue when speaking his mind during interviews, press conferences or on social media, but he still draws a line regarding certain subjects. He blasted Colby Covington after the multi-time welterweight title challenger insulted Leon Edwards’ deceased father ahead of UFC 296 and Strickland felt the same way towards his next opponent Dricus du Plessis.
The ugly incident unfolded at a pre-fight press conference where du Plessis shouted at Strickland while saying “you think your dad beat the s*** out of you? Your dad doesn’t have s*** on me … every childhood memory you have is going to come back when I’m in there with you.” Almost exactly 24 hours later, Strickland jumped over a row of seats at the T-Mobile Arena to attack du Plessis, who was sitting directly behind him during the event.
“There’s some things that are off limits,” Strickland said while addressing the situation on comedian Theo Von’s This Past Weekend podcast. “You don’t really talk about a man’s wife, you don’t talk about a man’s kids, and you don’t about a kid being abused. These things are all off limits. Once he crossed that … I tried to f****** ignore it. I was boiling.
“Whenever Dricus goes on there and he jokes about that s***, dude, you have no idea. I’ll f****** kill you, you have no idea. I think the issue is too, when you’re a kid and you’re made to be a victim your whole life, as an adult, you’re like never again. I’ll f****** kill you.”
(Warning: Sean Strickland discusses alleged domestic violence in graphic detail below.)
The comments from du Plessis crossed a line for Strickland, who recounted some of the horrific trauma he suffered growing up as a kid in California.
“I was in probably third or fourth grade, I used to always sleep in my mom’s room because I thought my dad was going to kill my mom,” Strickland revealed. “So I would sleep by the door, I’d sleep under the bed. I’d sleep by the door because I thought my dad was going to kill my mom.”
Strickland detailed one particularly horrific incident that ended with him calling the police to have his father arrested after he attacked his mother with his son hiding under the bed just a few feet away.
“One day, it was so f***** up, they just got in a bad fight, it was like third, fourth grade, my dad was like ‘f*** that, he’s not sleeping in here tonight, kick him out.’” Strickland said. “So I like army crawled under the bed and I’m sleeping under the bed. I’m like laying under the bed as they’re fighting because I think my dad was going to kill my mom.
“My dad gets on top of my mom and I remember he said ‘I’m going to f****** kill you tonight.’ Maybe it’s just rough sex, we don’t know at this moment. I’m under the bed and he starts strangling her. I get out and the only thing I can see is a guitar, I just f******* crack him in the head and call the cops. I run down the street to call the cops, he’s arrested and my dumb ass mom bails him out of jail. I would say that’s the tip of the iceberg.”
Strickland says he would often find himself trying desperately to protect his mother, while still just a child himself, from an abusive father who would hurl violent threats at her constantly.
“I remember I used to just sit there and hug my mom’s leg in the kitchen,” Strickland recounted. “We had this little nook and she would go in the nook and I would sit there and all night long, I’m by the feet of my mom and my dad [is saying] ‘I’m going to f****** kill you.’ He would talk about burning her face with acid. I’m in elementary school. He’d always tell her ‘if you cheat on me’ — and she probably was cheating on him — ‘if you cheat on me, I’m going to cut you up and put you in a bottle of acid and bury you.’
“Now you fast forward this, I don’t go to school. I’m up until 3 in the morning and I couldn’t stay awake in school. I stopped believing in God when I was in elementary school. I was laying in bed crying thinking about killing myself. There can’t be a f****** God here. How is there a God. Why would I be in this situation if there was a God? There ain’t no f****** god. My earliest memories. When I think back when I was a kid, I can’t recall one good memory, not one f****** good memory as a kid.”
Strickland paused several times during the interview as he gathered himself while telling stories from his childhood as he attempted to explain the constant rage that continued simmering throughout his adolescence. Hearing du Plessis use that as trash talk sent Strickland over the edge, which is why he just couldn’t hold back any longer while they were in close proximity to each other in the crowd at UFC 296.
“It’s one of the things people don’t understand is trauma,” Strickland said. “People understand, when I talk about ‘I’d kill a man,’ it’s like you don’t understand. When you go through that level of trauma, you just greet the world differently.”
While there were numerous videos that captured the altercation, Strickland revealed one other moment that apparently didn’t get caught on camera before security intervened.
“I’m so happy they didn’t get it from a right angle, I bit him,” Strickland said. “I s*** you not. Whenever he went into me, I remember at that moment, he tackles me and right there, you see my head goes up towards him, I started thinking how can hurt this man? I’m going take a f****** chunk out of him. I’m going to bite his f****** ear off.
“I remember telling myself at that moment, ‘Sean, you can’t do that, that’s something you can’t walk away from.’ If you do that, then I’m going to jail.”
The fighters were separated but police didn’t get involved and no arrests were made. Strickland ended up leaving the arena with UFC CEO Dana White later placing the blame on himself for seating the fighters so close to each other at the event.
Strickland obviously believes some of the comments from du Plessis were out of bounds, but he’s done his best to process it all and move on while still confessing that there’s just some events you never get past.
“I joke about all this s***, as we’re laughing, you’ve got to joke about it,” Strickland said. “If you don’t, how do you process that kind of abuse? Life’s good, I make a lot of money now. I’m happy.”
This story originally appeared on MMA fighting