Jake Paul Asks If Sean Strickland Is Out of His UFC Contract
Jake Paul has answered Sean Strickland‘s boxing talk with a contract question. “Sean Strickland I see your texts but are you out of contract? Tell your “promoter” to call MVP,” Paul wrote on X.
Strickland replied within the hour. “I haven’t decided if I want to nuke my contract but I gotta say man putting hands on you sounds way better than the UFC right now….”
That exchange is the first public confirmation that the two have already been texting. It is not a signed bout. Paul, who promotes through Most Valuable Promotions, told the UFC middleweight champion to have his promoter call. Strickland did not say he was free. He said he has not decided whether to tear up what he has left.
The reply sits on top of a pay argument Strickland started the day before.
“I gotta be honest, unless things change with the UFC, I’m kinda over it,” he wrote. “McGregor makes 30 million to fight for 30 seconds and they don’t want to pay us a fraction of it. Contemplating just going to 205, knocking out my contract and scrapping with Jake Paul. That sounds fun.”
He went further in the next post. “The thought of just giving up my belt, going to 205 and speed running my contract to fight Jake and make what these guys are making sounds pretty damn appealing.” A later line changed the verb. “Sorry, beating the brakes off Paul.”
Conor McGregor‘s number is Strickland’s comparison, not a confirmed purse. The $15 million figure he attached to “some lame boxer” is the same kind of claim.
Paul did not answer either number. He answered the only detail that decides whether a boxing date can exist, which is whether Strickland is still under a UFC deal.
The champion is. He won the middleweight title with a split decision over Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 328 in May, and the belt is still his. The defense that was supposed to follow has not been signed.
Strickland was discussed for a December 12 main event against Nassourdine Imavov at UFC 335 in Las Vegas, and he wrote last month that the sides were on pay and that the fight would lock once that number was settled. It did not settle. The UFC booked a different title fight for that card.
Imavov then found him in Las Vegas and pressed him about the unsigned contract, offering to pay him out of his own pocket as Strickland walked off. Strickland later called the sidewalk scene cringe and said Imavov had planned it.
The new posts move the complaint from that fight to the contract itself. “Nuke my contract” is his phrase. Paul put “promoter” in quotation marks and named MVP.
A release would have to come from the UFC, and neither Dana White nor the promotion has answered the thread. Strickland’s own plan, laid out before Paul’s reply, was not an immediate jump.
He talked about giving up the 185-pound belt, moving to 205 so the cut was gone, and finishing the remaining fights before a boxing date. The latest post narrows that. He has not decided to void the deal. He has decided that hitting Paul sounds better than staying where he is.
Paul’s side of the exchange is a business ask. Texts are not a bout agreement, and an active UFC contract blocks a Most Valuable Promotions date until the promotion signs off or the deal ends. Strickland has now put the choice in public. The title, the Imavov fight, and the Paul offer are all waiting on the same unsigned piece of paper.
