Sean Strickland is known for his intense and sometimes unorthodox approach to sparring — something that former UFC fighter Matt Brown believes may be holding him back.
Strickland’s sparring sessions are notoriously intense, pushing his training partners hard while focusing on realistic fight simulations. His sparring habits reflect his personality and approach to fighting as intense, technical, and often entertaining. However, Brown believes the former middleweight champ’s constant sparring could be limiting his growth as a fighter.
“The problem with the constant sparring — a lot of people talk about the brain damage and stuff like that. I don’t think that’s nearly as big of a deal as people make it out to be,” Brown said on MMA Fighting’s The Fighter vs. The Writer. “But you don’t evolve quite as much. You’re not compartmentalizing little skills and building on them.
“For instance, I’ve got a guy fighting pretty soon, and today we literally only worked on his jab and stepping outside because he’s fighting a southpaw—so getting his left foot outside of his [opponent’s]. So guys were sparring against him at about 50 or 60 percent, and his only job was to throw a jab and get outside. You’re not throwing right hands, you’re not throwing kicks, so we’re compartmentalizing these little skills.
“So now when he goes and spars again, he’s going to have a much better jab — hopefully. If what we did worked, he’s going to get outside better, and all those other things are going to open up. I don’t really see Strickland doing that because he’s just sparring all the time.”
Brown acknowledges the benefits of Strickland’s heavy sparring approach but argues that it comes at a cost.
“The advantage is he gets his timing very well, he knows exactly what he’s looking for all the time, he knows himself very well as a fighter, he doesn’t get as nervous,” Brown said. “There’s a lot of advantages. But you don’t evolve that way.”
Strickland is set to challenge current middleweight champion Dricus Du Plessis in a rematch for the title on Feb. 8 at UFC 312.
