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In fact, “Tarzan” no longer has a Gi and keeps his black belt buried in the trunk of his car. Probably because he’ll need it for that “weird” desert rendezvous he’s got planned for UFC welterweight veteran Belal Muhammad.
“Yeah I got [a black belt] a while ago, it’s bullsh*t, it doesn’t work,” Strickland told Nina-Marie Daniele. “It doesn’t work you guys, jiu-jitsu doesn’t work. It don’t work. It’s in my trunk somewhere, I lost my Gi, I don’t wear it anymore.”
Grappling could prove to be his best chance against a striker like Israel Adesanya, a former kickboxer with 16 knockouts in 24 MMA wins. But Strickland admits he’s likely to be seduced by the thrill of the standup, which cost him a few brain cells against Alex Pereira.
“I’ve been wrestling a lot in camp but sometimes you know, you get up there and you look at another man and I think to myself, I want to f*cking stand and bang with this guy,” Strickland continued. “So I probably should wrestle but that’s probably not going to happen. It’s not going to happen. But I should wrestle, I’ve been planning to wrestle.”
Strickland challenges Adesanya for the middleweight strap at UFC 293 in Sydney.