Jake Paul shares alleged Sean Strickland DMs, calls UFC star ‘insecure, lost, wannabe alpha male’

Jake Paul is willing to lay out the red carpet for Sean Strickland.

A budding rivalry between Paul and Strickland has seen the two trade verbal shots at one another, with Strickland claiming that the UFC won’t allow him to accept a fight with Paul, and Paul now firing back by saying that the former middleweight champion should be free to spar whoever he wants.

Strickland was recently caught on camera roughing up popular streamer Sneako in a spar, which is why Paul doesn’t understand why they can’t meet in a similar arrangement.

“‘Seany’ Strickland, the guy seems to be having some sort of quarter-life crisis there, just spazzing out on everyone, trying to beat up some influencers and such,” Paul said on his podcast. “But it’s a typical story of these UFC guys who call me out and then go quiet.

“I said I’ll send you the P.J. [private jet], I’ve got DMs, I’ll put the DMs up on the screen. I said, ‘I’ll send you the P.J. Let me know where. We can spar for a million dollars,’ and then all of the sudden it’s, ‘Oh, I would get sued by the UFC if I sparred Jake.’ But you just sparred Sneako. You could spar anyone. Contractually, in your UFC contract, it has nothing to do—it says nothing about sparring.”

During the recording of his show, Paul’s team threw up an alleged DM exchange between he and Strickland, which can be seen below (h/t MMA Uncensored):

The screenshots appear to show Paul and Strickland having an amicable conversation, with Strickland pushing for a sanctioned fight and Paul insisting that they spar due to his skepticism over the UFC allowing Strickland to pursue such a contest.

Paul questioned not only Strickland’s willingness to work with him, but also the brash persona that has become a major part of Strickland’s brand.

“So you spar an influencer, but then all of the sudden when I challenge you and want to send you a private jet, he’s making up excuses, saying he’s going to get sued by people, spazzing on MGK for no reason,” Paul said. “Even Dana White—I disagree with Dana a lot on many, many things—but we agree also on a lot of things and even Dana himself said you can’t put Sean Strickland around any human being.

“I feel bad for the guy. I see a very insecure, lost, wannabe alpha male that’s hiding behind the tough man complex. He needs a hug.”

Paul then joked that he’d be willing to be the person to give Strickland said hug and also tossed in a call-out to popular UFC lightweight Paddy Pimblett, who he’d also like to go a few rounds with.

“When Mr. Seany, I put my soft little hands on his little bald head and make him feel the love that his mother or his father never gave him, it could be a nice moment,” Paul said. “And maybe Paddy Pimblett can finally stop running from my spar offer too and I’ll just get all of them, two-for-one. Just the UFC’s once-could-be-a-star who failed, just put them on the JV sparring team.”

Update: Strickland responded on Twitter.