{"id":39524,"date":"2026-07-23T02:59:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T02:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sherdog.com\/news\/news\/Johnny-Eblen-wants-Sean-Strickland-bout-We-fight-each-other-for-free-202028"},"modified":"2026-07-23T02:59:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T02:59:11","slug":"johnny-eblen-wants-sean-strickland-bout-we-fight-each-other-for-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/johnny-eblen-wants-sean-strickland-bout-we-fight-each-other-for-free\/","title":{"rendered":"Johnny Eblen wants Sean Strickland bout: \u2018We fight each other for free\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n
\n
<\/center>\n<\/div>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

\nJohnny Eblen (above) says a Sean Strickland fight would be
\ndifferent outside the gym. | \ud83d\udcf7: PFL MMA<\/b><\/p>\n


\n<\/p>\n

\n

Johnny
\nEblen<\/a> and Sean
\nStrickland<\/a> never go easy on each other.<\/p>\n

Eblen and Strickland have developed a strong friendship despite
\ntraining at different gyms. Moreover, Strickland frequently
\ncampaigns for Eblen to get a
\nUltimate Fighting Championship<\/a> contract in the future. The
\nreigning UFC titleholder recently said that he wouldn\u2019t mind
\nputting his middleweight belt on the line against Eblen and the
\nlatter would happily oblige.<\/p>\n

\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Johnny Eblen explains why friendship would not stop a fight
\nwith Sean Strickland<\/h2>\n

Eblen recently explained why he doesn\u2019t mind fighting Strickland
\neven though they are friends. He says he\u2019d rather fight Strickland
\nfor money since they anyway do it for free in the gym. Eblen
\nrevealed that they go hard against each other in sparring sessions
\nand often use big gloves as they are both looking to land
\ndamage.<\/p>\n

However, Eblen clarifies that neither one is looking for a finish
\nif they see that the other is rocked. Having grown up wrestling
\nsince the age of four, the interim
\nProfessional Fighters League<\/a> middleweight king is also no
\nstranger to competing against his teammates.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’d be happy to fight him,\u201d Eblen told Ariel Helwani. \u201cWe fight
\neach other for free. It\u2019s not that we\u2019re trying to take away from
\neach other. We’re just competitors. Even when we spar, we spar
\nhard. It’s not easy rounds, man. We spar with big gloves because
\nwe’re trying to crack each other. Obviously, if someone gets dazed
\na little bit, we’re not trying to go in for the kill because we’re
\ntraining. But it’s just competition, man. I grew up competing
\nagainst my friends my whole life. I started wrestling from the age
\nof four and you wrestle your teammates all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

A welterweight
\ntitle fight headlines PFL Washington DC: Tune on Saturday, July 25
\nat 10 p.m. ET on ESPN<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Eblen (18-1) knocked out Impa
\nKasanganay<\/a> en route to a third-round finish to win the interim
\nPFL middleweight title in Austin, Texas. Strickland (31-7) had
\nflown to Florida to help Eblen in camp at the
\nAmerican Top Team<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

Johnny
\nEblen<\/a> explains why he’d have no issue fighting Sean
\nStrickland<\/a> despite their friendship:<\/p>\n

“I’d be happy to fight him. We fight each other for free.<\/p>\n

We’re just competitors. Even when we spar, we spar hard. It’s not
\neasy rounds, man. We spar with big gloves because we’re\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/WTt9stC7ho<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani)
\nJuly 22, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/center> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Johnny Eblen (above) says a Sean Strickland fight would be different outside the gym. | \ud83d\udcf7: PFL MMA Johnny Eblen and Sean Strickland never go easy on each other. Eblen and Strickland have developed a strong friendship despite training at different gyms. Moreover, Strickland frequently campaigns for Eblen to get a Ultimate Fighting Championship contract […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39525,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[150],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-martial-arts-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}