Two-time UFC Middleweight Champion Sean Strickland says that if he could fight any celebrity, he'd pick Elliot Page, the 5'1" transgender actor currently earning acclaim for his role in Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. Strickland, who stands 6'1" and fights at 185 pounds, called it an "easy dub."
What Strickland Said
The comment surfaced this week when Championship Rounds, an MMA news account "powered by" the online betting site Rainbet, posted a video of Strickland answering a question about which celebrity he'd most like to fight. "Elliot Page," he said without hesitation. "That's f**king all day long, that's a easy dub. I'd beat the s**t out of him."
That's f**king all day long, that's a easy dub. I'd beat the s**t out of him.
Sean Strickland
Strickland, a paid Rainbet brand ambassador, also posted the full clip to his personal Instagram, urging fans to "be a man and bet your life savings on a UFC fight." The original post has been liked more than 24,000 times and drawn hundreds of comments, many trading in the transphobic trolling that has become routine on the platform since Elon Musk's takeover.
A Foot of Difference, and Public Pushback
Not everyone piled on. Plenty of commenters instead mocked Strickland for boasting about beating up someone nearly a foot shorter and roughly half his weight. One user wrote that "Suddenly Jake Paul looks serious." Another asked why, given the choice of any celebrity on earth, Strickland picked "a transgender man an entire foot shorter than him."
A smaller subset of commenters noted, with some surprise, that Strickland used Page's correct pronouns throughout, a detail some read as a backhanded credit given his record.
Not an Isolated Remark
Strickland's comments about Page fit a well-documented pattern. In 2021, he wrote that he'd consider himself a failed father if he had a gay son. In 2024, discussing the UFC's since-abandoned Bud Light sponsorship, he told an interviewer that being transgender used to be treated as "a mental illness" until people "weaseled" their way into acceptance. Earlier this year he used anti-gay slurs while attacking musician Bad Bunny at a press conference and claimed straight teammates would physically retaliate against anyone who came out. In June, during Pride Month, he posted an AI-generated video depicting himself violently attacking trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
Why the UFC Keeps Looking Away
The organization hasn't always shrugged off this kind of talk. It suspended fighter Nate Diaz over a homophobic post in 2013. But by 2023, the UFC had effectively stopped disciplining fighters for anti-gay slurs made even in official post-fight interviews, and UFC President Dana White defended Strickland's 2024 tirade by saying the fighter had been "baited." Strickland was suspended by Nevada's athletic commission last year, but for throwing punches outside the cage, not for anything he'd said.
MQ's Take
Nobody in the UFC's orbit seems bothered that one of its biggest stars keeps fantasizing publicly about assaulting queer and trans people, whether it's a real actor a foot shorter than him or an AI rendering of a trans influencer. The gambling sponsors funding these clips profit from exactly this kind of engagement. Until the UFC decides a pattern of stated violence against LGBTQ+ people is a problem worth solving, expect Strickland to keep finding a microphone, and an audience.
Source: LGBTQ Nation
Cover photo: MMAnytt, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
