“I don’t get sick, I don’t get f——- injured, I don’t get f—— staph so relax.” That’s what Sean Strickland claimed after getting cleared of the Staph infection rumors. However, he couldn’t prevent himself from getting injured while fighting Dricus Du Plessis. Back at UFC 297, ‘Tarzan’ injured his face and claimed that DDP’s alleged headbutt sent blood gushing through his eye. Well, he also claimed that it was the only reason he lost the previous fight. But history repeated itself in the rematch at UFC 312 when Du Plessis made Strickland lose blood through his nose. And now, he has come forth with an update about his injury.

Soon after he lost the bout to ‘Stillknocks’ via a unanimous decision, ‘Tarzan’ took to Instagram and shared a video where he revealed that his nose was broken in 6 places. And that made it easy for the medical professionals to fix his nose. “That was a new experience,” he said in the video.

This left the fighting community wondering about what happened next. Did he have the broken nose fixed? It didn’t take the former middleweight champion much time to come forth with an update. He shared the gruesome image of him bleeding heavily at the Qudos Bank Arena, Australia. In the caption, ‘Tarzan’ wrote, “Couldn’t ask for a better life……🙏 ALSO they make setting a broken nose look way harder in movies. I think I had to reset it 3 times in the fight. At this point I might be an expert lol!”

It also invited praise from his 2-time South African opponent. DDP commented, “Absolute warrior. Honour sharing the octagon with you once again.” The broken nose had ensured that Sean Strickland couldn’t breathe through his nose. And the bleeding even had the potential to obstruct his oral respiration. However, he showed commendable resilience and broke the record for most significant strikes landed, with 1465 strikes in the middleweight division

But Dricus Du Plessis and many others couldn’t avert their attention from Strickland’s broken nose. 

Dricus Du Plessis, Joe Rogan, and Aljamain Sterling react to Sean Strickland’s UFC 312 injury

During the post-fight press conference for UFC 312, Du Plessis shared his opinion on Strickland’s broken nose. He said, ”He was ugly before. When I hit him in the nose I went, ‘wow’, I couldn’t believe he got uglier I was like, ‘wow’ and I was like, ‘oh your nose is so screwed up now’…he kept pushing it to the same side it was already broken to. And I was thinking to myself, ‘bro the other way.”’

Joe Rogan was also squeamish about the horrific injury. As he and his guests, Matt Serra, Bryan Callen, and Brendan Schaub, watched the fight on JRE Fight Companion, the JRE host kept calling for the fight to stop. He said, “He’s gotta stop him. Oh my god, look at his nose- dude, its shattered. Oh my god, its shattered.”

And later, the former bantamweight champion, Aljamain Sterling, took to X to share his insight. The fight reminded Sterling of the infamous matchup between Robbie Lawler and Rory MacDonald. MacDonald had suffered a fractured nose and a fractured foot. He was left with a swollen face that had the entire fighting community expressing their worries. Weighing in on that, Sterling wrote, “Reminiscent of MacDonald vs Lawler. A broken nose, with 5min left to fight can be career-ending. You just can’t take damage the same after that. This last round is gonna be tough. Hail Mary efforts from Sean?” 

Nevertheless, Strickland wasn’t someone who would go down with ease. Despite the gruesome injury, he was already looking forward to his next bout. And this time, we can expect him to walk through his opponents, provided they don’t attack his nose. 

What do you think of Strickland’s resilience at UFC 312? Do you think his future opponents would target his nose in their fights? Let us know what you think in the comments down below.