Sean Strickland shares rare emotional message following press conference comments

On Friday, Dec. 15, the UFC hosted a 2024 seasonal press conference which played host to three title fights featured on UFC 297, UFC 298, and UFC 299. During the presser, several controversial comments were made, aimed at UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland and his father.

One of those comments was made by UFC bantamweight champion Sean O'Malley and the other by Strickland's upcoming opponent, Dricus du Plessis.

O'Malley said something along the lines of "At least I didn't get f--ked by my father," after Strickland said that O'Malley let's other men have sex with his wife. Du Plessis said he would beat him like his dad used to do.

Normally, Strickland lets comments roll off his back, he serves as much as he eats, but these comments hit a particular nerve and manifested in the heated fac-off and the comments Strickland made on Twitter later.

"I expect nothing less from O'Malley and Dricus. Next time come at me as a man... Clearly you don't know what that means......" he wrote on Twitter. "I just wanna say one thing that I feel needs to be said.. There are a lot of kids out there who have been abused and molested and it's a damn tragic thing that forever changes you. How you function, how you view the world, how you treat relationships, how you handle addiction and for someone to put you down with that level of trauma on a world stage is an utter disgrace.. I have a big following of people who suffered trauma, molestation and I will tell you that it's not funny to me, whatever you've gone through or have been through isn't funny to me........ I hope you all understand that these are weak men who don't understand hardship, they don't understand what it's like to live with demons... Forever a struggle they will never understand."

Strickland has said on multiple times that his father abused him in the past, and he says his brash personality is a result of that.

Sean Strickland defended Leon Edwards from 'fake, fu*king p*ssy' Colby Covington

Prior to those comments being made, Strickland stood up for Leon Edwards, who was the target of a Colby Covington controversy just the day before. Covington told Edwards, "I'm bringing you to the seventh layer of hell. We'll say 'what's up' to your dad while we're there."

Edwards father was murdered when he was a child.

Strickland wasn't a fan of Covington's comments.

“And him making fun of Leon’s dad, that is the biggest f****** c*** move you can do. That is the biggest c*** move you can do. Leon’s mom – Dad good guy, bad guy, doesn’t f****** matter – she raised a boy to be a f****** man, to win a title, to be a good man, and a real f****** American would applaud him for that. They wouldn’t tear him down for that. So just so you know, Colby is a fake, f****** p****, and if he was standing here right next to me, the only f****** thing he would do is call 911, because he is the definition of a f****** b****.”