Sean Strickland’s craziest moments ranked ahead of Paulo Costa fight at UFC 302 (2024)

Sean Strickland has earned his reputation as MMA’s Wildman.

The loose-lipped American has become an unlikely star since outpointing Israel Adesanya to take his middleweight championship at UFC 293 last September.

Strickland’s journey to the top of the sport has been littered with strange revelations, wacky social media posts and a bunch of controversial moments.

Ahead of his fight against Paulo Costa at UFC 302 on Saturday night, talkSPORT.com has whittled his career down to the five craziest moments.

5. Sparring Francis Ngannou

Strickland is known for his anyone, anywhere, anytime approach to sparring.

The former middleweight champion often shares footage of him scrapping in the gym and has even got in trouble for posting a clip of him knocking someone out during training.

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In July 2023, he shocked everyone by revealing he sometimes shares rounds with former UFC heavyweight titleholder Francis Ngannou, who also trains at Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas

‘The Predator’ is one of the biggest punchers in history and about 100lbs heavier than Strickland, but that doesn’t stop him from trading blows with the Cameroonian knockout artist.

“I have banged with Francis,” Strickland said on The Joe Rogan Experience.

The UFC commentator was a mixture of worried and intrigued as he probed his podcast guest by saying: “Oh! Seriously? Jesus Christ! What was that like?”

Strickland replied: “Heavyweights are easier to hit and not get hit. But the problem is, when they touch you you’d feel like you’ve got hit by a truck.”

Footage of his sparring claim quickly went viral on social media. Some people thought it made total sense and others doubted the story was true until the coach they share, Eric Nicksick, confirmed it.

4. Machine Gun Kelly beef

Machine Gun Kelly has a worrying habit of annoying UFC fighters.

The rapper famously irked Conor McGregor, whotried to attack him, on the MTV Video Music Awards red carpet in September 2021.

Earlier this year, he found himself in a verbal altercation with Strickland at a Power Slap event, and the whole thing was caught on camera.

Viral footage showed the MMA fighter calling ‘MGK’ names and insulting his clothes. As he walked away, Strickland turned back and said, ‘I’m easy to find, vampire man.’

According to Strickland’s account, Megan Fox’s partner did nothing except be in the same room as him after making some bold fashion choices.

“I go and I meet the vampire and I make fun of him,” Strickland said about his altercation with Machine Gun Kelly.

“I’m like, ‘Dude, what are you f***ing wearing? Like, what the f*** is going on here? How are you doing this?’ He looked at me and he didn’t laugh, and he didn’t giggle.

“But he looked at me like, ‘Why is this guy with no respect talking to me like this?’ He looked at me like I was less than human.”

Strickland continued to take shots at the recording artist online, but he was blanked, and the beef died down before it got out of hand.

3. The Flamethrower Incident

Strickland is a known gun-lover who has even shared CCTV footage of him holding a trespasser at gunpoint.

In the aftermath of his big win over Adesanya, Strickland managed to get his hands on an extremely advanced piece of weaponry and it almost ended in tears.

Hans Molenkamp, who works with Monster Energy, uploaded a clip to social media that showed Strickland literally playing with fire.

“I love the smell of burnt hair in the morning,” he captioned footage of Strickland pointing an active flamethrower in his direction and playfully chasing him.

Molenkamp can be heard saying, ‘You just singed my arm’ before showing off the damage caused to the camera - but Strickland simply laughed and reshared the video.

Thankfully, nobody was seriously hurt during ‘The Flamethrower Incident’.

2. Beating up a streamer

One of Strickland’s sparring clips caused huge controversy in February.

Jake Paul furiously challenged him to a $1million training session after watching the UFC star doing his best to knock out a popular streamer, Sneako.

MMA’s most divisive fighter spent the first few minutes of his spar taunting the novice boxer, who he allowed to hit him without firing back.

However, the UFC's former185lb king soon began landing massive power shots and continued to do so until someone jumped into the cage to pull him away.

Many people were impressed by Sneako’s ability to remain upright during the barrage, but others were angry at Strickland for going way too hard.

Several days later, Strickland issued a ‘stop challenging me’ plea after getting into a fight with a fan, which was much more playful but still ended with him choking out a civilian.

1. UFC 296 brawl

Strickland stole the show, and he wasn’t even fighting at UFC 296 last December.

The American was sat in the crowd for the card headlined by Leon Edwards vs Colby Covington, but he didn’t get to see the welterweight title bout.

Dricus du Plessis sat right behind him days after the two men had been trading below-the-belt insults at a press conference to promote their UFC 297 title fight.

Fan footage shows Strickland jumping over several people, including a small child who he ushered out of the way, to attack du Plessis with a series of punches before being kicked out of the venue.

UFC CEO Dana White took full responsibility for the incident during his post-fight press conference.

He said: “What kind of an a**hole sits Strickland next to Du Plessis? This a**hole, that’s who,”

“I do every seating assignment every week. How f***ing stupid is that?

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“I mean, seriously. I don’t know what humans you can sit Strickland next to, but definitely not Du Plessis. I don’t know how I missed that.

“It's my job to make sure that stuff doesn’t happen. If I wasn’t an a**hole those two wouldn’t have been sitting next to each other. It blows my mind that I let that slip.”