Sean Strickland pulls off one of the greatest upsets of all time at UFC 293

Not many people game Strickland a chance at winning this thing. I know that I felt as though they were giving Israel Adesanya a "bye week" when this fight was announced but the way it actually unfolded, well, I don't think anyone could have seen this coming.

Izzy was favored at -625 meaning that if you made a $1000 bet for him to win and he had won, you would have only got $375 payout. According to the Tweets that appear on-screen during the broadcast, one poor sap out there laid down $220,000 for Adesanya to win and well, I hope that this guy was super wealthy because he lost all of that humpity bumpity.

I wasn't really even looking forward to this fight because I felt like it was just some garbage that Dana White and company were throwing at us to round out a rather weak card in Australia, but what we got was a lesson in how to completely shut down someone's game.

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_{And new!!!!}

Adesanya is a very dangerous fighter and what makes him this way is his rather brilliant counter striking capabilities. He is unpredictable and at least in his stand-up game, he is probably one of the best in the world... he certainly didn't look like that was the case last night though.

There were parts of the match where the crowd in attendance started to "boo" the fight because imagine if you will, a fighter that is back-pedaling and moving out of range for 25 minutes in a row. Well that is essentially what Israel Adesanya did. Seriously, I don't think that Izzy was moving forward for more than maybe 30 seconds of the entire fight. I don't know why he didn't seem to adjust his strategy but Sean Strickland just kept the pressure on for the entire fight, and was very patient with how he decided to go after the champ. We got a near stoppage in the first round, but it was from the opposite person that everyone suspected it would be.

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Adesanya was on the receiving end of a 1-2 combo that briefly floored him and Strickand swarmed with many hits after the initial one. In other fights, the official might have called it off at that point but due to the fact that fans, fighters, and even Dana White have been getting upset about early stoppages quite a lot lately, referee Marc Goddard let it ride.

Now you never count out someone like Adesanya because many times in the past he would strike out of nowhere to end a fight early without even throwing hands all that much. That wouldn't be the case in this fight and Izzy just couldn't seem to mount any sort of meaningful offense.

The official stats show that Strickland outstruck Izzy 137-94 but honestly, for anyone that was watching, we must have somehow missed about 80 of those 94 reported significant strikes from the now ex-champ. For the most part he barely landed any clean shots and those strikes must be almost exclusively leg kicks, which Strikland was easily checking the entire fight.

Something I particularly enjoyed about this fight is that nobody even attempted a takedown at all in 5 rounds. One lazy tactic that some fighters use / abuse is that when they feel they are up on the cards, which Sean almost certainly was after 2 or 3 rounds, is that they will shoot for takedowns without really having any intention of doing anything with them. This is because "ground control time" which is something that I hate being a factor in many fights, is a wonderful way to win rounds even though you don't actually do any damage during it.

This is Sean's biggest pay-check to date at over $500k but Israel got more than twice that much even with a loss.

For me, the fight was a good one but it was a bit upsetting to see Israel just continue with the same game plan that clearly wasn't working for 5 full rounds. Strickland didn't need to change what he was doing because he was already in complete control of the fight. There was never a single moment in that fight that I felt as though Adesanya had the upper hand.

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All three judges gave round 2 to Izzy, but I feel as though that was more politics than performance. It could have gone either way because nothing much happened in the 2nd round. This was more Adesanya's fault than Strickland's because Izzy was running away and seemed almost as if he was refusing to engage. All the other rounds though, no one was going to argue who won those.

Strickland was humble in victory taking time to thank the Australian fans to uproarious applause. He said he had no plans to party and that he just wanted to get back to his room, get some food, and go to sleep. After the press conference, it is reported that he did exactly that.

I look forward to seeing him in the future and only hope that he will keep this level of excellence moving forward. Often times, when people become the champ they seem to be more interested in "not losing" than they are in winning and this can result in a defensive style of fighting which might have been a misstep for Izzy in this fight. I am sure Adesanya will be pushing for a rematch but I sincerely hope that they let Sean fight someone else first.