The head coach of Sean Strickland and Francis Ngannou recently praised Strickland for one of the latter’s past training sessions with “The Predator.”
While sparring at Xtreme Couture, Strickland loves competition in the training room and is always game to spar with heavyweights like Ngannou, who is nearly 50-plus pounds heavier than “Tarzan,” has a 3-inch height advantage, and a 7-inch reach advantage.
Throwback to when Sean Strickland called out Francis Ngannou for a sparring session
During a recent interview with Action Network, head coach at Xtreme Couture, Eric Nicksick, revealed that Sean Strickland once called out Francis Ngannou to spar because Strickland wanted to feel ‘scared and terrified.’ However, after the sparring round ended, the heavyweight knockout star left the ring, showing respect to “Tarzan.” Nicksick said:
One day, Francis was in the room, getting his rounds lined up, and Sean said, ‘I’ll go with you one and two.’ He basically called out Francis. I remember walking over to Sean and asking, ‘Dude, are you out of your mind? What are you thinking?’ He replied, ‘I want to feel scared. I want to feel terrified. That just keeps me on edge.’ They actually had a really good round, and Francis left that round respecting Sean, knowing that Sean went in there and tried to put it on him. It was a really good round. So, they had that moment together where Francis was like, ‘Alright, I respect this guy. He came in swinging.'”
Nicksick lauded Strickland’s fearless and hardworking attitude and the latter’s desire to always compete against the best in the room.
Sean is just the wild man. That’s the one thing I always say about Sean: he always runs towards hard work. He never runs from it.”
Sean Strickland recently TKO’d the surging Anthony Hernandez in Round 3 at UFC Houston and is now gearing up to face UFC middleweight champion and former training partner Khamzat Chimaev next, in the main event of UFC 328.
Francis Ngannou, on the other hand, is set to make his MMA return on Netflix and MVP’s Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano card on May 16. “The Predator” will face Philipe Lins in a five-round heavyweight clash inside the hexagon at the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles.
