UFC 293 Aftermath: How Sean Strickland Became Middleweight King

Sean Strickland is the new UFC middleweight champion. He outboxed Israel Adesanya, yelling at him as the fight came to a close. If that seems like fan fiction, bad fan fiction at that, you’d be mistaken. UFC 293 saw one of the bigger upsets in UFC history. This wasn’t Holly Holm-Ronda Rousey type odds, but many expected Strickland to get beat pretty soundly. In today’s Aftermath column, we are going to break down the baffling: how in the name of all that is holy did Strickland outstrike Adesanya? The story is both complicated and at the same time, not complicated. It is also not particularly surprising. So how did he do it?

Crowding the Lane

In UFC 293 Beforemath, we spoke on the importance of Sean Strickland making Adesanya’s life miserable. What I failed to do is elaborate on the parrying and forward pressure from “Tarzan” that would be a huge part of that aim. The 32-year-old would manage to make it a grindey fight without having to lean on Adesanya or wrestle him. He did it the old fashion way: by punching him. Two of the most tiring things in striking are being on the back foot and missing on your strikes. Having to go backwards and reset all night will have almost any fighter breathing heavy and Strickland’s shoulder roll caused Adesanya to miss on most of his strikes. That is not an exaggeration; Adesanya landed just 34% of his attempted strikes on Saturday, a shockingly low accuracy rate for the self-proclaimed king of “aim and fire.”

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With the shoulder roll, Strickland managed to negate Adesanya and keep him from taking off with the fight. As I said in Beforemath, Strickland is no Floyd Mayweather when it comes to rolling with the punches. Hell, he’s not even Dustin Poirier, but he does just enough, and had improved just enough going into this fight, that it gave Adesanya major problems and was the source of his woes all night.

In Figure 1, we can see Adesanya caught in an age-old trap he consistently gets caught in. Parked against the fence, (1) Adesanya reaches out and probes with his lead hand. Strickland (2) reaches out and grabs it with his own lead hand. This takes away one of Adesanya’s weapons, as “The Last Stylebender” likes to reach with his lead hand, retract and return with a jab to follow behind with a hook, kick or cross out of southpaw. On the other side, Strickland loses a weapon too, but taking away one of Adesanya’s and controlling it is the far superior position. After getting control of the hand, Adesanya (3) comes with the cross.

With the shoulder roll base from Strickland, he does a good job of keeping that right hand on the phone and looking for a counter. Adesanya throws the cross, but since Strickland’s hand is in the proper position, he can slap it down, as seen in the picture. This is what got Strickland finished by Alex Pereira. Reaching down at everything leaves him open for the counter, but here, Strickland will exit to the rear as he parries down the left cross, (4) creating additional range.

Doing this really buggered up Adesanya’s night. Strickland was not the prettiest, most disciplined, or technically sound when parrying away, but it was effective. When push comes to shove, it doesn’t matter if you look like you’re slap fighting. If it is working against Adesanya, one of the UFC’s best strikers, keep it up—especially if he doesn’t make any adjustments.

Circling back a bit, I want to touch on Adesanya for a second. At UFC 293, he seemed not to make any adjustments for Strickland. All night he would back to the fence and plant himself there, as if he was looking for one big counter. This is contrary to everything we’ve come to love about Adesanya: He’s generally better in the center of the cage when he has every direction in which to move. However, as with the first Pereira fight, backing himself onto the fence was his undoing. Pereira found the jab, as Adesanya couldn’t lean back as he would in a kickboxing ring or in the center of the cage. With Strickland possessing such a good jab, and after training with Pereira in preparation for this fight, I wouldn’t be surprised that this was discussed and drilled. Strickland found the jab as Adesanya backed to the fence time and time again and even scored the knockdown.

I’m afraid that we’re seeing the simplification of Adesanya’s game. At 34 years of age, that’s a bad sign. In mounting his offensive pursuit, Strickland continued to fight the probing hand of Adesanya all five rounds.

One of my favorite parts of the fight was Strickland straight up grabbing and pulling Adesanya’s probing hand like an arm drag. In this particular case, Strickland manages to land a knee to the midsection while he pulls Adesanya to him. (1) Adesanya reaches out, (2) Strickland grabs that hand, and (3) pulls him into the knee. It’s a completely different look from what Adesanya has seen in his MMA run thus far. While it wasn’t a fight ended, it was a factor and caused Adesanya to panic each time Strickland grabbed the lead hand.

The Fastest Way from Point A to Point B is a Straight Line

That heading applies to punching too. Jabs and crosses beat hooks and overhands 99 times out of 100. Strickland only punches straight, while Adesanya wanted the hook for a big Pereira-like knockout. This was Adesanya’s undoing and it was apparent from early on. Strickland’s knockdown of Adesanya near the end of Round 1 is all the rage right now and rightfully so. It perfectly demonstrates the “fastest way” mantra.

What’s unique about the knockdown is how Adesanya was biting on the feints of Strickland. Most thought it would be the other way around and given Strickland’s history, that was justified. Note in this figure how (1) Strickland throws out a half-hearted jab and Adesanya (2) raises his right hand to parry. As that’s happening, Strickland brings his elbow up and Adesanya (3) raises to a high guard position. Strickland will remember from Adesanya’s last fight with Pereira that a high guard against the fence means Adesanya will bite down on his mouthpiece and throw a hook. Strickland also knows he can beat that with a straight punch due to the shorter distance traveled. (3) He throws a jab and (4) lands the cross as Adesanya tries to come over the top with his left.

That knockdown proceeded to hand Strickland the round and vastly change the momentum of the fight, swinging it in his favor. Referencing back to Beforemath one more time (take a hint, go read it), we talked about Strickland’s ability to stay in the pocket and move all the time in his win over Jack Hermansson. He’s got sneaky footwork. It’s not good, but it’s sneaky as all get out.

Strickland managed to find himself (1) in the pocket with Adesanya in the middle of the cage, AKA “IzzyLand.” (2) Strickland fires off a jab and brings his rear leg around at a new angle. (3) Notice how Adesanya has snuck his own rear foot up and how Strickland has his right hand on the phone again. Adesanya would have the step-up high kick already chambered here but Strickland’s high guard stifles that option and Adesanya decides to wait. This gives Strickland enough time to (4) fire off the jab and (5) the right cross, his bread and butter.

Strickland also utilized his teep well by using it and not using it. As he came forward, Strickland brought his knees up very high. This served two purposes. He could check the kicks, of which he did a ton, and he can fire the teep, or push kick, from that position.

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Using this push kick allowed Strickland to push Adesanya to the fence where, as discussed, Adesanya would set, Strickland would jab, and Adesanya would exit. Strickland did a good job of not getting overzealous on his punches. Adesanya thrives when he can move and make his opponent miss. He will find counters where he can really punish and pile on points. Instead, Strickland let Adesanya exit the exchange, having scored his points, and walked him back to the fence again. Adesanya would set, Strickland would jab, and Adesanya would exit. Sound familiar? It’s the same exact thing he did all night.

Strickland’s coronation was not one that many envisioned, nor did it play out in the way it likely would have for those who foresaw such an upset. Strickland combated Bach or Beethoven, musical geniuses who know the ins and outs of music, with the power chords and nasal vocals of the Sex Pistols. It was basic, but it worked and it made him a champion.