UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland is set to defend his title for the first time at UFC 297 on Saturday night against surging middleweight contender Dricus Du Plessis. The co-main event for the card is a title fight for the vacant women’s bantamweight championship, which Strickland is seemingly not pleased about.
Women’s bantamweight contenders Raquel Pennington and Mayra Bueno Silva are set to fight in a five-round co-main event on Saturday night for the vacant championship.
Strickland, the headliner for the fight card, was asked on Wednesday what he thought about the co-main event being a women’s fight. The middleweight champion then went on to go on a rant about women’s MMA as a whole.
“Here is the thing guys. The WNBA and the NBA. Who watches what? Who makes more money? Sure, have women’s MMA a thing. I don’t like to watch it. I don’t think most people like to watch it. If female’s MMA were separate from male MMA, nobody would watch this ****. No one wants to watch this ****. It is what it is man, I don’t know what to tell you. Again, do you want to watch a sports car race a Honda Civic? No, you want to watch a sports car. There is a vast difference between men and women. I’m not saying you can’t enjoy it. I just don’t want to see two little cats fight. I want to see lions fight.”
As you would expect, there were a number of fans who disagreed with this take from Strickland on social media.
https://twitter.com/sosalip97/status/1747862924448682313
Sir women’s mma fights are 3/4 more exciting than any of your fights https://t.co/19SGaKUplO
— Reilly (@reillynjam) January 18, 2024
It’s a pretty wild take from Strickland here considering all you have to do is look back at the history of the UFC to see that women can certainly be a huge draw with a ton of fanfare around them.
Look no further than former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey, who was one of the few UFC fighters to transcend the sport and become a true icon in not only MMA but mainstream sports as a whole.
Regardless, it sure seems like at least Sean Strickland would have preferred for another fight on the card to be the co-main event instead of Pennington versus Bueno Silva.
About Reice Shipley
Reice Shipley is a staff writer for Comeback Media that graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in Sports Media. He previously worked at Barrett Sports Media and is a fan of all things Syracuse sports.