Former UFC champion Sean Strickland has admitted he “was excited” to see a video of Charlie Kirk’s murder, also asking: “How did I become such a sociopath?”
Strickland, who held the UFC middleweight title from September 2023 until January 2024, is among the most controversial fighters in mixed martial arts’ (MMA) flagship promotion.
The American, 34, previously admitted he wanted to kill an opponent in the cage one day, while he has also been dismissive of women’s MMA, and was the subject of media furore in Australia when he criticised the country’s gun laws before fighting there.
Now, in a video on his Instagram story, Strickland has reacted to the murder of Kirk – a right-wing political activist and ally of US president Donald Trump – who was shot dead at a Utah college campus on Wednesday (11 September).
“I’m on Twitter [X], and somebody says: ‘Hey, did you hear that Charlie Kirk got shot?’” Strickland said. “And my gut reaction was like: ‘No, I f***ing didn’t, but I’m excited.’ Like, I felt this little dopamine spike in me, where I’m like: ‘Dude, I want to see the video.’
“Then I see the video. Real bad, real bad, but I’m still kind of excited from it. Like, ‘Oh, s***,’ like I can feel my muscles tensing. And then I start thinking: ‘Man, well, what’s gonna come from this? Was the shooter black? Was it a liberal? Am I gonna get more fun? Am I gonna get more violence? Let’s burn this motherf***** down! I need some excitement!’
“And then you start thinking, man, like: ‘How the f*** did I become such a sociopath? Like, how am I so [detached] from human beings. When people walk down the street, I don’t even see people; I just see potential threats and problems.
“Then I think about the last news cycle. We watched a girl get stabbed, murdered on the subway. We’re watching little kids get pulled out of buildings, because maybe somebody launched a rocket [at] it; I don’t know why. We are so desensitised and we’re such sociopaths, it’s kinda sad.”
Strickland seemed to be referring to the stabbing of Iryna Zarutska, a Ukrainian woman who was killed in an attack in Charlotte last month.
“I just watched a man get murdered and found it exciting,” Strickland continued. “I have to ask myself: ‘How did we become a generation of sociopaths? […] It’s just sad and frustrating.”
Strickland also accused the United States of being overcome by consumerism, saying: “Slowly they just manipulated us to be sociopathic consumers, and the only thing we want is stuff and things, stuff and things.
“It’s just so sad […] It’s taken the soul from us, they took God from us, they’ve taken everything from us. And we’re just mindless, sociopathic consumers. I don’t know how to fix it.”
