Sean Strickland doesn’t agree with the scoring in his loss to Jared Cannonier at UFC Fight Night 216.
Strickland (25-5 MMA, 12-5 UFC) suffered a split decision defeat to Cannonier (16-6 MMA, 9-6 UFC) in Saturday’s middleweight headliner at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, putting back-to-back losses on his record for the first time after he was knocked out by Alex Pereira in his previous outing in July.
The fight was competitive from start to finish, but there wasn’t a whole lot of action to score clearly for either fighter. The three judges cageside failed to unanimously agree on a single round, with two giving 49-46 cards to Cannonier, while Strickland got a 49-46 of his own from the one judge who had him winning.
The frustration was clear in the octagon after Strickland was announced the loser of the fight, and after some brief reflection time, made it clear he thought the judges failed him.
“I’m a f*cking sore loser,” Strickland said in an Instagram video. “Hat’s off to Jared, but you have judges that don’t know how to f*cking do their job. You actually look at the scorecard and you look at the significant strikes and you look at how many times I wobbled him. You have experts in the field come up to me and say, ‘Yeah man, I don’t know how you lost that one. You landed way more. The scorecards should say it.’ Anyways, I’m going to shut the f*ck up now. Get off my soapbox.”
After putting together a six-fight winning streak to join the ranks of contenders at 185 pounds, Strickland has now dropped consecutive fights against opponents in the top five. It remains to be seen who and when he’ll fight next, but he said he intends to push forward and shift focus to his next opponent.
“Back to the drawing board,” Strickland said. Onto the next one.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC Fight Night 216.