UFC 293 - An apology to Sean Strickland
This sport is just bonkers. I didn’t see a realistic path to victory for Sean Strickland against Israel Adesanya, not in the standup, not in the grappling and I certainly didn’t think he’d be able to outpoint the now former champion, but that’s just what he did.
From the first bell he walked forward and forced Adesanya to fight off the back foot. That was to be expected though, as that’s usually how Strickland fights and has had success. What was surprising was how effectively he was able to shut down Adesanya’s main weapons and barely take any damage at all. Strickland has always had a tight guard and good defence, but last night it was simply sensational. Leg kicks is something Adesanya has consistently had great success with, but Strickland did a fantastic job at checking a majority of the kicks, some of which visibly bothered Adesanya. He also did an excellent job at using the tight guard and shoulder rolls to evade Adesanya’s boxing and kicks, and I can probably count on one hand the amount of times where Strickland was truly hit clean to the head. Even though his defence is great, after seeing the Alex Pereira fight I highly doubted if Strickland would be able to be perfect for 25 minutes against such a sophisticated striker as Adesanya, but he really proved me wrong.
But even if his defence was on point, I couldn’t really see him troubling Adesanya with his own striking either, where again I was proven wrong. Strickland only needed a jab, cross and the front kick to the body in order to get the job done, but doing the simple things perfectly was exactly what he needed to do. In the first round he managed to catch Izzy with a cross when he tried to throw a hook, and as we know, straight punches beat looping punches most of the time. Both Gastelum and Pereira had Adesanya rocked and stumbling, but of all people, Sean Strickland is the first people to record a knockdown against the former champion. But even apart from the knockdown he was winning the striking battle throughout the first round, an likely would’ve taken the round anyway. Adesanya came back strong in the second round and won that on all the judges scorecards, but then Strickland just pushed the pace for the last three rounds and didn’t allow Adesanya to get into his rhythm. We don’t even need to take wrestling and grappling into the equation, because it wasn’t needed. Strickland said in the post-fight presser that wrestling was part of the game plan, but when the fight is going so well, why deviate from what’s working?
It was a truly special performance from the new middleweight champion, and also one of the biggest upsets in UFC history. What differentiates this from fights like Serra vs GSP and Holm vs Rousey is that Strickland played Adesanya’s game for 25 minutes and beat him at it. It wasn’t a “fluke” knockout or submission and he wasn’t gifted a controversial decision, he flat out dominated the champion in his own wheelhouse. I didn’t think he’d be able to do it, and I’m sure that the majority of people were thinking the same thing. I’m not ashamed to own up and eat my own words, as this sport constantly knows how to humble us and make us look like fools.
Congratulations to Sean Strickland, the well deserved new middleweight champion.