Strickland says he has added reigning light heavyweight champion and former middleweight champ Alex Pereira to his corner team for his title challenge against Dricus Du Plessis in Sydney, Australia this weekend, and hinted that there could be a rivalry boiling up between his new cornerman and the current middleweight champion.
“Yeah, Alex is gonna corner me. He was already out here. And I was like, ‘Dude, if you’re out here, man, swing by!'” he told UFC.com this week.
“Me and Alex,I don’t think we ever actually spoke a word to each other, you know? But I think Alex is an angry motherf****r. Alex is angry and, for some reason, he hates Dricus. I don’t know what you did to him, but he f*****g hates you, dude!
“The way he looks at Dricus sometimes, I’m like, ‘Dude! I’m fighting him, dog! It’s me, dude!’
“But yeah, Alex just has that hate in his heart, and he’s a good dude.”
Strickland has also benefited from some handy sparring sessions, having spent some time moving around on the mats with fellow UFC middleweight contender Caio Borralho, who is in Australia to corner his Fighting Nerds teammate Bruna Brasil at the same event.
Borralho and Strickland may both have the same career goals, but that hasn’t stopped the pair from working together, both at Strickland’s Xtreme Couture gym in Las Vegas, and in Sydney during fight week.
“It’s kind of cool,” said Strickland.
“Caio is out here. He’s cornering (Brazil), but he’s out here, so we’re going to spar after this (interview).
“We’ve got a lot of guys out here from different gyms that we train with. So it just kind of feels like I’m back at home!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqUdjI–br0
