Sean Strickland’s longtime coach, Eric Nicksick, recently reflected on their brief falling out last year.  Strickland looked to reclaim his middleweight title in a rematch against Dricus Du Plessis at UFC 312 in February 2025. Strickland dropped a lopsided unanimous decision against the champion. Nicksick seemingly just failed to get his fighter going despite his best efforts.  The Xtreme Couture coach subsequently lashed out at Strickland publicly, calling the performance “underwhelming.” Strickland responded, saying Nicksick would most likely not remain his coach any longer. However, they buried the hatchet soon after, and Strickland still continues to train under the tutelage of Nicksick at Xtreme Couture.  Reflecting on the brief spat, Nicksick recently admitted that he deserves criticism. Nicksick revealed that he was also dealing with a lot in his personal life, which, added to Strickland’s performance, made him lash out at the former middleweight champion. Nicksick doesn’t regret what he said as he believes he was accurate with his analysis. However, Nicksick regrets voicing his harsh opinion about his fighter publicly. Nicksick claims he and Strickland had sorted their differences within days of the public rift.

“I think that that criticism was just,” Nicksick told