Sean Strickland

Sean Thomas Strickland (born February 27, 1991) is an American professional mixed martial artist. He currently competes in the Middleweight division of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), where he is a former UFC Middleweight Champion. A professional since 2008, he is a former Middleweight Champion of the King of the Cage. As of August 19, 2025, he is #3 in the UFC middleweight rankings.

Early life

Sean Strickland grew up in Corona, California, in a household with a physically and mentally abusive father. He has one brother. During Strickland’s early childhood, he attacked his father with a guitar in an attempt to defend his mother out of fear he might kill her. Strickland fled from his house and contacted his local law enforcement leading to his father being briefly arrested. However, the next day his father was released from jail as his mother paid for his bail.

In Strickland’s adolescence, he developed a close relationship with his grandfather, who exposed him to neo-Nazi ideology. In ninth grade Strickland was expelled from school for perpetrating a hate crime; afterwards, his mother brought him to an MMA gym to help him cope with his problems. Strickland stated, "Then I started training and the moment I started training I was like...I don't hate anybody. Everyone's cool. Then a lot of people who helped me out in my life, they weren't white."

At the age of 18, Strickland had another violent altercation with his father again resulting in police involvement. However, no charges were pressed. Following this, Strickland and his mother moved out of his father’s house. During a 2024 episode on the This Past Weekend podcast, he revealed that his father had died of cancer following a long-term drug addiction.