Sean Strickland impresses in incredible upset, takes middleweight title from Israel Adesanya at UFC 293
The Ultimate Fighting Championship returned to us tonight, September 9, 2023, for UFC 293, going down live from the Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney, Australia.
Headlining the event was a title clash between UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya (24-3) and no. 5 ranked Sean Strickland (28-5). Adesanya had just reclaimed the throne in his most recent outing against Alex Pereira back in April, while Strickland came in on a two-fight win streak and was making his fourth-straight main event appearance.
Continue reading to see how this middleweight championship main event went down:
Official Result: Sean Strickland def. Israel Adesanya via unanimous decision (49-46, 49-46, 49-46)
Strickland walks Adesanya down throughout the entire first round, landing a hard one-two combination toward the end of the round, dropping him with the right. He absolutely unloads from here, though Adesanya is able to regain his composure and make it to the end of the round.
The champion has a much better round two; though he’s still being walked down, he’s finally able to start landing his punches about eight minutes into the fight. He’s also doing a good job of mixing in his leg and body kicks. But, he doesn’t continue to land on Strickland, who’s doing an incredible job of making Adesanya miss.
Strickland gets back to it in the middle stretch, landing on Adesanya often toward the end of the round. He’s giving Adesanya a much tougher fight than most of us had anticipated.
Strickland is making this a very tough out for the champion, making him miss nearly every strike he throws. No one has made Adesanya miss this much, and we’ve never really seen him get bullied around the cage like this either.
Strickland’s counters are as sharp as ever tonight, and against one of the greatest counter strikers in the entire sport.
Strickland continues to batter Adesanya through the fifth and final round for what became one of the bigger upsets in MMA history. He just made that look easy, and against arguably the greatest striker we’ve ever seen in the sport. He kept Adesanya on the backfoot the entire time, struck first when it mattered, and out-countered him.
What a masterful performance by our new UFC middleweight champion.
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