Sean Strickland has claimed that Dana White warned him he might get deported from Canada before his UFC 297 clash against Dricus Du Plessis. In a recent interview, ‘Tarzan’, who is known for his politically incorrect takes and motor-mouth, claimed that the UFC CEO came to him before the UFC 297 pre-fight press conference.

While White told Strickland that he personally didn’t care what the American said about anything, he warned him that making disparaging comments on the trans issue might technically violate Canadian law, potentially leading to his arrest and expulsion from the country.

“I’ve had Dana like come up to me before fights. He’s like ‘Hey, Sean, listen we’re in Canada,’ he goes ‘listen Sean I will never tell you to shut the f**k up, you know that, yeah? I’m just going to tell you that if you start going in, if you start going too deep on the trans stuff, in this area, like you are technically breaking a law in Canada. And they will throw you in prison… If you say anything too harsh, they will deport you and this fight’s not going to happen,” he told his coach Eric Nicksick on the latter’s podcast.

Strickland, despite these warnings, famously got into an ugly verbal spat with a reporter on the topic of calling the reporter, who identifies as an ally of the LGBTQ community “pathetic,” and a “weak man” and going on a rant about the Canadian Prime Minister. After all, Strickland is nothing if not one to tell you exactly how he feels about something with no filter or regard to how people will react to it.

But, thankfully, the American was not thrown out of Canada before UFC 297, but after the event, he might feel that that would actually have been better given how the fight went. ‘Tarzan’, of course, lost a razor-thin decision (and his middleweight) title to the South African on top of the UFC’s first PPV of 2024.

However, he is set to rematch the South African champ but this time, he desperately wants the fight to be in America.

Sean Strickland begs Dana White to fight Dricus Du Plessis in America

Dana White has confirmed that Sean Strickland will rematch Dricus Du Plessis next. Which has raised the question- where? With Du Plessis having made clear time and time again that he wants to fight in his native South Africa, there are murmurings that the UFC may return to the mother continent for ‘DDP’-Strickland.

But Strickland is totally opposed to the idea, as he told Nicksick in the same interview, and wants the rematch to be in America, preferably in a state like Texas or Nevada with liberal gun ownership laws.