“You watch him corner Francis and that m*****f***** is in the fight!” he said with a laugh. “When Francis is fighting, he’s talking deep s***, not about fighting, but about belief in him, and I respect that. That’s not something I need, but I respect a coach who is in the fight with their fighter.
“He gives me a lot of freedom and I appreciate that,” Strickland added. “We’ll do drills and I’ll ask him, ‘Can I go more live?’ and he’ll say, ‘Get in the cage and go live’ because he understands that I don’t want to drill.
“It’s nice to have a coach that understands this is what you like, this is how you get better, so have at it.”
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What’s ironic — or perhaps evidence that the community he’s found at Xtreme Couture is having a greater impact on him that he realizes — is that as soon as you get Strickland talking about his fight with Hermansson on Saturday, all those tendencies to put himself down and deflect praise disappear, and he talks like a man that knows and believes he’s one of the absolute best fighters on the planet.
“He fought my buddy Marvin, and I watched him with Khazmat,” said Strickland when asked about Hermansson, who lost to his former teammate Marvin Vettori in December 2020 and dropped a wrestling match to Khamzat Chimaev earlier this year. “The guy’s tough, he’s good, but I’m better than him.
“If me and him are at our best, I destroy him. If it’s him at his best and me at my okay, I beat him. I lose by completely f****** up.”
Asked to elaborate on what qualifies as “completely f****** up,” Strickland points to Hermansson’s two more recent victories — a submission win over Kelvin Gastelum and a unanimous decision triumph over Edmen Shahbazyan.
“Look at when he fought Kelvin Gastelum. Kelvin s*** the bed — he took him down and got leg locked. What about Edmen Shahbazyan? I like him, but he’s soft. He pulled guillotines. C’mon, man.
