The next middleweight title fight would appear to be a rematch of what fight fans saw take place over five rounds in the main event of UFC 297.
Dricus Du Plessis won a split decision on that night in January to take the belt from Sean Strickland, following a back-and-forth encounter.
After Strickland was able to bounce back with a win over Paulo Costa and Du Plessis defended the title against Israel Adesanya this past weekend, a rematch is on the cards.
Given how close it was the first time around, there likely isn’t going to be a big change made by either man that will drastically change the way this one plays out – and that’s how Strickland’s head coach sees it.
Eric Nicksick Says He Expects A Similar Fight With Small ‘Chess Match’ Adjustments
In a recent interview with Submission Radio, Eric Nicksick spoke about his expectations for preparing Strickland to face Du Plessis for a second time.
He spoke about how the key to this fight will be focusing on small adjustments because they wouldn’t need to do much different to have won the first encounter.
“There are some things and I’ve said them publicly in the past but there are definitely some things that we went away from that would have helped negate that forward pressure and I still firmly believe had we stayed on those things, we would have won that fight and he didn’t do those things, Sean did not do those things. So, we need to get back to some small little changes.
“There’s some things on the ground that I think we can accomplish as well that I would like to revisit with Sean and yeah. I mean it wasn’t this crazy, crazy, ‘Oh dude, we got our a** kicked’. There was just some small little things but now the fun part is the chess match. What are they going to do to go back and make those adjustments and what are they going to expect us to make our adjustments on, and then there’s that little game of chess now. That’ll be the fun part.”
Nicksick also believes that this first fight is going to look very similar to the UFC 297 headliner because of the styles and toughness of both men.
He can’t see a way that it doesn’t end up being a test of both men’s wills when the going gets tough.
“You would love to say, ‘Oh, we’re gonna go in there and smoke this dude’ but Dricus, he’ll look awful and then he comes back and does his thing so you got to expect a knockdown drag out fight. 2-2 going into round five, hey we’re down to the last five minutes, we’re going to have to dig deep and figure out a way to get this fight, that’s how we have to train, that’s how we have to expect it. It’s going to be to the death.”
Continue Reading Sean Strickland’s Coach Expands On Strategy For Dricus Du Plessis Rematch: ‘It’s Gonna Be To The Death!’ at MMA News.