A former UFC champion believes Sean Strickland could potentially leave the promotion if he no longer wants to compete under the UFC banner. He pointed to his own experience of requesting a release.

Demetrious Johnson explained that he once approached Dana White and Hunter Campbell directly for his release so he could pursue bigger financial opportunities elsewhere. The UFC agreed to release him but first explored whether a deal could be made with another promotion.

That process eventually resulted in a trade involving Johnson and Ben Askren. During a recent conversation with Tim Welch, he said:

“You know, I would like it if Sean Strickland doesn’t want to fight for the UFC anymore, if they ask him, if he asked them to let him go, then let him go. If he doesn’t want to fight for the UFC, just let him go, and then they’ll just replace him with somebody else. Um, I think if that’s truly where his heart is, that he does not want to fight in mixed martial arts anymore, I think you just let the man go. … So now we’re just supposed to let him go.”

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He added:

“Let one of our stars go and go to MVP and box Jake Paul. Here you go. I’m gonna give you some breaking news just to clear the air for all the people out there. So everybody out there says you were traded. You were traded. Yes, I was traded. I asked the UFC for my release. I asked them, I said, ‘UFC, Dana, Hunter Campbell, can you please release me from my contract so I can go make more money?’ And UFC says, ‘Okay, well, we’re going to release you, but we got to see if we can get something when we release you. We just can’t let you go. Maybe we can get something.’”

Check out Demetrious Johnson’s comments below (3:00):

Demetrious Johnson explains how Sean Strickland could secure his release

Demetrious Johnson went on to explain that his departure from the UFC was driven by his desire to pursue bigger opportunities and earn more money. He revealed that the UFC initially considered a third fight between Henry Cejudo and Demetrious Johnson, but his request for a release changed those plans.

The promotion eventually negotiated a deal with ONE Championship involving Johnson and Ben Askren:

“At the time, Ben Askren was retired, and the UFC was like, ‘Well, Ben Askren has a mouth. He can generate a lot of noise.’ So if we can, they reached out to ONE Championship and they had the discussion. They’re like, ‘Hey, we’ll give you Demetrious Johnson even though we’re going to release him, we’ll give him to you, but we would like to have the opportunity to have Ben Askren.’ So people look at it as an aspect of, ‘Ah, we don’t want to do anything.’ If I would have never asked for my release from the UFC, I would have never been traded.”