Sean Strickland recently defeated all odds to win the UFC middleweight title. Israel Adesanya, one of the most active champions in the promotion, was supposed to make a splash at UFC 293. But ‘The Last Stylebender’ couldn’t have gotten much worse, and Sean Strickland couldn’t have gotten any luckier.
The two men entered the ring for the UFC’s first Sydney, Australia, event since 2017. They fought for the middleweight championship, which Israel Adesanya has controlled since his highlight-reel knockout victory over Robert Whittaker at UFC 243 in 2019 (with the exception of a loss to Alex Pereira).
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Prior to the fight, no one gave Strickland a chance, yet it’s hard to argue with their reasoning. With his deceptive knockout power, lightning-quick movement, deft footwork, and size advantage over practically every other middleweight, Adesanya is regarded as one of the best strikers in all of sports.
On the other side, Sean Strickland entered the conflict with a reputation as a generalist. He is proficient in everything, but he excels in nothing. He is regarded as a puncher with a pillow fist, a non-checker of low kicks, one of Adesanya’s strongest weapons, and a wrestler without much to offer.
Nobody gave him credit for being able to harm the man who dodged former heavyweight Jared Cannonier’s blows. Nobody gave him a chance to beat the man who has twice outworked Robert Whittaker on the feet in terms of striking. However, Sean Strickland accomplished both of those.
He had a painful weight reduction before entering the cage to face Adesanya in hostile territory with just a little over a month to prepare for one of the best middleweights of all time. He was only a last-minute substitution for Dricus Du Plessis, Israel Adesanya’s original adversary; he wasn’t expected to win.
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