Michael Bisping praises “tremendous grappling” of Sean Strickland ahead of Israel Adesanya title fight at UFC 293
UFC Hall of Famer Michael Bisping praised the “tremendous grappling” of Sean Strickland ahead of the Israel Adesanya title fight at UFC 293.
Adesanya puts his belt on the line against Strickland next month at UFC 293 in Sydney, Australia. For Adesanya, he is a huge betting favorite to get the job done over Strickland, who is getting his first title shot. Both men are primarily strikers, and in that kind of matchup, one would have to favor Adesanya. But what would be super interesting is if this fight went to the ground, as Strickland may have the edge there.
Speaking on his YouTube channel, Bisping spoke about Strickland’s grappling game and explained why this is the path to victory that he should be using if he wants to get past Adesanya at UFC 293.
“If Sean could take Israel Adesanya down, this could be a really interesting fight. Sean, I’ve trained with him myself – he’s got tremendous cardio. He can go all day, and he has a very economical style to go a long time, to go the distance, because he uses a lot of jabs. He looks for openings and only really exerts himself when he sees the openings. But he’s got tremendous grappling. I’ve trained with him. His ground game is very, very good – very dangerous. He has a very underrated ground game – brilliant sweeps and obviously very good submissions,” Bisping said (via MMAjunkie.com).
“Do you think he’ll actually try and shoot a takedown? Because you never know: the element of surprise. I don’t think Izzy will expect Sean to shoot a double-leg takedown, but he might just do that. Set it up with the jab: Boom-boom, 1-2, drop a level, drive into the fence, get your hands together. When you get the hands together, you can pick someone up and put them down pretty easily. But that’s the hard part, and of course Izzy’s defended that stuff many, many times.”
Do you think Sean Strickland will take down Israel Adesanya and use the grappling chops that Michael Bisping praised?
