The surprise of the year! Strickland defeats Adesanya and becomes the new middleweight king
Igor Nekrasov September 10, 2023, 07:54 Moscow time
The main UFC announcer now has a championship belt
The UFC 293 mixed martial arts tournament wrapped up in Sydney, Australia, where the main event was the middleweight title fight between Israel Adesanya and Sean Strickland.
Late last year, Adesanya lost his championship belt after five successful defenses, losing by knockout to his most awkward opponent, Alex Pereira. But in April 2023, Israel took more than convincing revenge under MMA rules and knocked out Pereira, reclaiming the belt from him. Israel’s next opponent was supposed to be Dricus du Plessis, who defeated Rob Whittaker, but due to the African’s health problems, the UFC was forced to look for a replacement, and the choice fell on Sean Strickland.
On Adesanya’s victory over Pereira:
Video
The king is back! Adesanya knocks out Pereira on the fourth attempt
Strickland is ranked fifth in the middleweight rankings and has been in the league for a long time, since 2014. For Sean, this was the first title fight: after losing to Jared Canonnier, he picked up two wins over Nassurdin Imavov and Abusupyan Magomedov, after which he received a title shot. Yes, Strickland wasn’t the most obvious contender, but confident performances in recent fights, active trash talk, and injuries to other top 5 fighters led Sean to fight Adesanya.
From the first minutes of the fight, the fighters took a slow pace. Strickland tried to pressure the champion, but made very little success. Adesanya, for his part, worked from afar and acted in various ways, however, most of the blows went to the block. But the end of the first round turned out to be unexpected: Sean caught Adesanya with a right hand to the jaw, Israel collapsed, but the gong sounded for the champion – Strickland did not have time to finish off the opponent, although everyone was there. possibilities of this.
After that round, Sean continued to push in the second five minutes. Adesanya managed to recover and again began to work in various ways as the second number from a distance. The second round was similar to the first, but without Shawn’s explosive finish.
More on Strickland’s title trip:
Strickland is an example for Ankalaev. Tears with trash talk and risks his life just before the fights.
The panorama of the battle did not change in the third round. Sean again approached the opponent, Adesanya retreated, but at the same time interrupted the challenger from a distance. Israel used a lot of low and front kicks that did not allow Strickland to get close. And Sean relied on his boxing technique and tried to catch the champion, like he did at the end of the first round.
In the fourth round, Strickland became more active, began to hit more and acted more aggressively. In terms of number of shots, Sean outplayed the champion and Israel began to slow down: Adesanya had a hard time under constant pressure from Strickland.
Strickland came into the championship round loaded, feeling confident in his abilities. The challenger continued to apply pressure and forced the champion to retreat. Adesanya did not try to add activity, change anything in the fight and worked as a second number. Strickland, for his part, had an almost perfect fight and in the end asked the champion to cut himself.
The fight lasted the entire distance and the judges sided with the challenger. 49-46 on the cards of all referees in favor of Sean Strickland, who became the new UFC middleweight champion.
“I want to thank the fans, you motivated me all this time. Thank you Australia. This is the first time in my life that I have no words. “I changed my life for this,” Strickland said in an interview.
