Strickland’s teammate says UFC 297 main event 'is going to be a circus'

TORONTO — Few fighters in mixed martial arts know Sean Strickland as well as Chris Curtis.

The middleweight teammates have trained countless hours together in recent years at Xtreme Couture under Eric Nicksick and both will be competing on the UFC 297 main card this Saturday at Scotiabank Arena as the octagon returns to Toronto for the first time in more than five years.

Curtis is set to face Canadian Marc-Andre Barriault in a presumptive barnburner just three contests before Strickland makes his first title defence against Dricus Du Plessis.

The pre-fight hype around this weekend’s main event has been turbulent these past few weeks to say the least. It has mostly centred around the trash-talking and an altercation at UFC 296 in December where Strickland attacked Du Plessis in the stands and Curtis suggested the action in the cage between these two could end up also being of the chaotic variety.

“This is going to be a circus,” Curtis said Wednesday when breaking down Strickland’s upcoming challenge. “People use the term 'war,' I prefer 'circus' because there are certain fighters that have wars and there are certain fighters that create circuses. You’re kinda like 'what the hell’s happening?' I think Dricus is a circus guy.”

Du Plessis is riding an eight-fight winning streak and finished seven of those bouts before the judges were required. However, Curtis sees holes in the South African’s game that Strickland could be able to exploit.

“I would never hold Dricus up as the pinnacle of kickboxing, like as a technical kickboxer, but it’s just weird. He’s running at you, it’s almost angry flailing,” Curtis explained. “It’s feral almost but it creates a circus, so that’s the big unknown for me.

“You’re not going to tire Sean out. Like, we’ll have three people attack Sean and he’ll die before he lets somebody outwork him. He’s not going to outwork Sean. I don’t see that anywhere. He’s not going to hold Sean down. I’ve seen Sean essentially squat (No. 3-ranked 205-pound contender Magomed) Ankalaev to get up. I’m just curious about how messy this gets. Like, Dricus is a messy guy. Sean tends to be messy in pockets but he tends to be very clean so it’s a completely different clash of style and mentality. I just don’t know how it goes.”

Curtis is the No. 14-ranked contender at 185 pounds entering UFC 297 and his opponent said earlier in the day he’s viewing a win over Curtis as his ticket into the top-15 at middleweight.

“I was Brendan Allen’s ticket, I was Phil Hawes’s ticket and a lot of other people’s tickets and I sent them right back,” Curtis said before also giving props to the six straight wins Allen has amassed since their 2021 tilt. “People are like 'oh, you're a gatekeeper,' well I’m like 'OK but you still can’t come in.' You can call me gatekeeper all you want, you can’t come in. So, you can believe that and that’s fine. Marc-Andre’s tough, I like Marc-Andre, but everything you do that you’re good at I’m better.”

The 36-year-old is coming off a disappointing no-contest with Nassourdine Imavov after a clash of heads ended their UFC 289 bout in Vancouver prematurely. Curtis, nicknamed "The Action Man," only has one victory in his last four outings but is always live for a Fight of the Night or performance bonus.

Curtis included cardio in the list of advantages he believes he holds over Barriault and was equally confident Strickland will hold the edge in conditioning over Du Plessis in the headliner.

“If anything I think Dricus is most dangerous in the first round-and-a-half maybe two rounds,” Curtis said. “He looked better in the (Robert) Whittaker fight but as a fighter I would say he slowed down in the second round. I watched him slow down and Whittaker slowed even more. I watched him slow down in a fight he controlled the pace. Even the pace he controlled, he couldn’t maintain it the way he wanted.”

Strickland went 3-0 in 2023 and weaponized his pace in all three victories. He began the year by taking a fight on 11 days’ notice. Those circumstances would often see a fighter compete despite a compromised gas tank. Curtis was in Strickland’s corner that night and recounted specifically telling him to slow down midway through the bout just in case but Strickland went on to dominate with high-volume offence anyways.

The pair have been pushing each other for a full camp ahead of UFC 297 and Curtis believes wholeheartedly the longer the fight lasts the more it will favour Strickland.

“The first round-and-a-half Dricus is going to be really dangerous,” Curtis added. “It’s going to be really scary but the moment we hit past one-and-a-half rounds I think Sean is gonna absolutely (expletive) dog-walk him.”