Newly-crowned Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) middleweight champion Dricus Du Plessis will defend his 185-pound strap against former division titleholder Israel Adesanya.
If and when that fight does come to fruition, it sounds like Sean Strickland will be first in line for the backup role, in case Du Plessis or Adesanya are unable to make it to fight night. Let’s face it … “Stillknocks” doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to putting pen to paper.
“I’m in,” coach Eric Nicksick told Submission Radio. “I’ve flown to all corners of the world for this stuff. So, to me, it’s nothing. If they want us to do it, we’re in. And, you know, that opportunity happens. We’ve seen it. We’ve seen people step in as the backup. So, make yourself available. But for Sean, it’s a long trip. It’s a weight cut. It’s this, it’s that. So, we’ll see what he decides on. But we got one more step ahead of us on June 1st.”
Strickland won’t be eligible to reclaim the crown he lost to Du Plessis at UFC 297 unless he first gets past former middleweight title challenger Paulo Costa in the UFC 302 pay-per-view (PPV) co-main event, scheduled for this Sat. night (June 1, 2024) at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.
“The five rounds, I think definitely favors us,” Nicksick continued. “And that’s the mentality right now, is to try to drag this dude into some deep waters. So, I’m hoping we can get him out of there by round four or round five. But this dude’s tough. He’s gritty, he’s durable. But it’s going to be up to us to just keep chipping away at him, chipping away at him. So, that that’s the goal. That’s the goal. I’m not trying to make a prediction, but I’m just telling you what we are expecting out of our athlete, and that’s it.”
“That to me is a very important part of our game, is to not only don’t put our back to the cage, but keep him on his back foot,” Nicksick said. “So, that means we have to be inside. We have to be in boxing range, man. I think Costa has dynamic fast twitch kicks. We saw the one he hit Robert Whitaker with. His switch kick comes super fast. His right head kick comes super fast. So, I don’t really care to be in that BC range, I would like to be in the A range, which is that chest to chest. Which in tune, like just being in that range alone, you’re going to be moving guys up to the barrier or fighting real close quarters. So, it’s going to be up to us to kind of dictate that pace and keep it where we want to fight. And, that’s part of the game plan.”
To see who else is fighting at UFC 302 click here.