Tag: UFC 293

Dricus Du Plessis would have KO’d Israel Adesanya in the first round at UFC 293: ‘He wouldn’t have gotten up’

Du PlessisDricus Du Plessis says Israel Adesanya would not have made it out of the first round had it been him and not Sean Strickland challenging for the middleweight world title at UFC 293. Strickland shocked the world on Saturday night, scoring a decisive unanimous decision victory over ‘The Last Stylebender’ to claim his first piece […]

Du Plessis

Dricus Du Plessis says Israel Adesanya would not have made it out of the first round had it been him and not Sean Strickland challenging for the middleweight world title at UFC 293.

Strickland shocked the world on Saturday night, scoring a decisive unanimous decision victory over ‘The Last Stylebender’ to claim his first piece of UFC gold in The Land Down Under. Going into the bout on relatively short notice, Strickland was a massive 7-to-1 underdog, but the often outspoken contender looked practically unbeatable, executing a picture-perfect game plan that saw him light up the two-time titleholder throughout the 25-minute affair.

Strickland nearly ended things early in the opening round after landing a right hand that sent Adesanya crashing to the canvas. ‘Tarzan’ swarmed the former champ and unleashed a flurry of strikes, but was unable to land the finishing blow.

Appearing on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani, top-ranked contender Dricus Du Plessis suggested that if it had been him and not Strickland in the UFC 293 main event, Adesanya would not have made it past the first round.

“He wouldn’t have gotten up from that flurry after Strickland dropped him,” Du Plessis said. “100%. If I fought that version of Israel Adesanya… Do you think Robert Whittaker would have beaten that version of Adesanya? Yes. That fight went a round-and-a-half with me and Whittaker. There’s no way [Adesanya] would have seen the second round.”

Dricus Du Plessis Promises Israel Adesanya a Shot at the Middleweight Title

Initially, Dana White suggested that a rematch between Strickland and Adesanya was the move to make, but the UFC CEO backpedaled on that suggestion while addressing media members following Tuesday’s edition of Dana White’s Contender Series. Fight fans online overwhelmingly suggested that Strickland should defend his title against the division’s No. 1 ranked fighter, Dricus Du Plessis.

“The belt is what interests me, Du Plessis told Helwani. “After that, we can do the Izzy fight. Right now, Sean Strickland has the gold and I want to fight Israel Adesanya, but not as bad as I want to fight for the belt. So I’ll make the promise that when I win that belt, [Adesanya] will be the first defense, 100%. But right now, Israel Adesanya is irrelevant to me. All my focus is on the guy with the title and that’s the guy I want to fight next.”

Adesanya and Du Plessis have been at odds ever since ‘Stillknocks’ suggested that he would one day become the UFC’s first true African world champion. That comment struck a chord with the Nigerian-born ‘Stylebender’ leading to a racially charged face-off following Du Plessis’ second-round knockout of Whittaker in July.

Clearly, the two men still have some beef to settle inside the Octagon, but for now, Du Plessis is only focusing on whoever holds the gold.

Dana White walks back Sean Strickland, Israel Adesanya rematch talk after UFC 293: ‘There’s lot of options out there’

Dana White walks back talk of Israel Adesanya and Sean Strickland rematch there's options UFCDespite immediately noting his interest in seeing newly-minted middleweight champion, Sean Strickland defend his crown in an title re-run with former champion, Israel Adesanya just minutes removed from UFC 293 on the weekend, promotional CEO, Dana White has now claimed they’re are more than just rematch options on the table for Strickland. Headlining UFC 293 […]

Dana White walks back talk of Israel Adesanya and Sean Strickland rematch there's options UFC

Despite immediately noting his interest in seeing newly-minted middleweight champion, Sean Strickland defend his crown in an title re-run with former champion, Israel Adesanya just minutes removed from UFC 293 on the weekend, promotional CEO, Dana White has now claimed they’re are more than just rematch options on the table for Strickland.

Headlining UFC 293 in his premier pay-per-view curtain closer last weekend, Covina native, Strickland made good on his curtain closer debut atop a flagship card, dispatching Adesanya over the course of five dominant round to clinch the undisputed middleweight championship in a huge upset decision win. 

Israel Adesanya may not land immediate title rematch after all

And linked with an immediate title fight rematch against Adesanya off the back of his massive upset success against the City Kickboxing staple, Strickland was lined up to defend his title in an immediate re-run against the former, however, the above-mentioned, White has insisted there are more options on the table rather than just an immediate rematch.

“I saw the stupid f*cking sh*t that was written, you know, by all these stupid f*cking websites,” Dana White told assembled media after the Contender Series this week. “You know, never once did I say, ‘Yes, we’re going to do this f*cking rematch.’ We’ll see what happens. Obviously, there’s a lot of options out there, and we’ll see what happens. But, yes, I’m still not opposed to an Israel rematch – we’ll see how it goes.” 

And while White now appears non-committal on Adesanya’s future and, in particular, his chances of landing another immediate title rematch, the City Kickboxing mainstay’s head coach, Eugene Bareman claimed he would search for a re-run against Strickland as soon as December of this year. 

Do you think Israel Adesanya deserves another immediate title rematch?

Israel Adesanya claims coach saved Sean Strickland’s life with corner advice in UFC 293 title defeat

Israel Adesanya claims coach saved Sean Strickland life at UFC 293 lossFormer two-time undisputed middleweight champion, Israel Adesanya had heaped praise on the coaching ability of Xtreme Couture head coach, Eric Nicksick following his title loss to his student, Sean Strickland at UFC 293 last weekend, claiming corner advice instructed by him helped “save” the challenger’s life.  Adesanya, a former two-time undisputed middleweight champion under the […]

Israel Adesanya claims coach saved Sean Strickland life at UFC 293 loss

Former two-time undisputed middleweight champion, Israel Adesanya had heaped praise on the coaching ability of Xtreme Couture head coach, Eric Nicksick following his title loss to his student, Sean Strickland at UFC 293 last weekend, claiming corner advice instructed by him helped “save” the challenger’s life. 

Adesanya, a former two-time undisputed middleweight champion under the banner of the organization, suffered his second championship loss in less than a year, dropping a unanimous decision (49-46, 49-46, 49-46) loss to Covina native, Strickland over the course of five one-sided rounds in Sydney, Australia.

As for Strickland, the shocking upset victory came as his first in a championship bout under the banner of the Dana White-led promotion, headlining his first pay-per-view event since joining the UFC to boot.

Israel Adesanya claims Sean Strickland’s head coach saved his life at UFC 293

And according to Nicksick, Adesanya informed him immediately after his title loss, that he managed to save Strickland’s life with his corner advice throughout the bout, with Nicksick noting Adesanya’s intention to setup a high-kick effort which he managed to read.

“Izzy (Israel Adesanya) came up to me and said, ‘You saved (Sean Strickland’s) life,” Eric Nicksick told Morning Kombat during a recent interview. “‘You kept calling out my reads.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, because I saw what you were setting up.’ He (Israel Adesanya) would throw his southpaw cross at Sean’s right hand and Sean would parry it down. I yell to Sean, ‘Bro, he’s going to same-side head kcik you.’ It’s going to come right behind it.”

Urging critics of his to “delight in my [his] demise” off the back of his title loss to Strickland at UFC 293 last weekend, Adesanya has been lined up for an immediate championship rematch with the newly-crowned champion, with head coach, Eugene Bareman claiming a bout could take place as soon as December of this year. 

Do you want to see Israel Adesanya rematch Sean Strickland next?

Chris Curtis offers his take on Sean Strickland’s stunning UFC 293 victory: ‘We all knew he could win’

StricklandTraining together at Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas, Chris Curtis probably knows more about Sean Strickland’s style and skill than anyone. Still, that didn’t stop ‘The Action Man’ from being absolutely stunned by his dominant performance against Israel Adesanya at UFC 293. Strickland delivered perhaps the performance of a lifetime in his first shot at […]

Strickland

Training together at Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas, Chris Curtis probably knows more about Sean Strickland’s style and skill than anyone. Still, that didn’t stop ‘The Action Man’ from being absolutely stunned by his dominant performance against Israel Adesanya at UFC 293.

Strickland delivered perhaps the performance of a lifetime in his first shot at a world title. Stepping in on relatively short notice against the man many consider to be the greatest middleweight of all time, ‘Tarzan’ dictated everything that happened inside the Octagon for 25 minutes en route to scoring one of the biggest upsets in UFC title fight history.

Following the contest, Adesany’s coach at City Kickboxing, Eugene Bareman fielded questions on his behalf and suggested that ‘The Last Stylebender’ simply had an “off night.” However, Sean Strickland’s teammate, Chris Curtis, had a much different take while discussing the UFC 293 headliner on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani.

“If you watch Sean spar anybody, it goes very similar to that,” Curtis said. “I’ve seen him spar a bunch of people. You can get better fighting against Sean, but every time someone has their first rounds with Sean, it goes exactly this way. Where people are like, ‘What the hell is going on?’ So everybody’s like, ‘Izzy looked off.’ I’ve seen this a thousand times. You can get better at fighting him, but when you initially run into him you are just confused.

“Everything he does is, on paper, wrong. It’s not the way you’re supposed to move. He moves weird, he throws weird, he kung fu blocks, he’s really good at shutting down the things you’re supposed to be good at. You hear at one point Izzy say, ‘I can’t find my jab.’ It’s hard to find your jab against Sean because he creates so much random traffic with his jab or when you start jabbing he’s parrying weird, he’s kung fu blocking.

“In most combat sports, especially kickboxing and boxing, everything is predicated off of your jab. Everything sets up with your jab, so when he just takes that away from you, no, it’s not there, you can’t out-jab Sean. He’s going to win that battle. He’s either going to counter you or just make your jab pointless. Look at Izzy, he’s throwing jabs, he’s getting his arm blocked up high, a few times he’d throw and Sean just bats his arm up and away. … So all that bullsh*t about Izzy looked different, no, you look confused like I looked confused and everyone else looks confused when they spar Sean because it’s like, ‘What are you doing?’ No, that’s bullsh*t, I’ve seen this happen for seven years and this is what he does” (h/t MMA Fighting).

Perhaps even more shocking is the fact that the UFC never intended to book Sean Strickland to challenge Adesanya for the middleweight title in The Land Down Under. Originally, the plan was to have the division’s top-ranked contender, Dricus Du Plessis, step in two months after his stunning second-round knockout against Robert Whittaker at UFC 290. Unfortunately, Du Plessis was unable to commit to an eight-week notice after suffering a toe injury in July.

The promotion seemingly scrambled to find anyone other than Sean Strickland, but in the end, it was Adesanya who took credit for pushing the UFC into booking the fight.

“Sean is probably the toughest human being that I’ve met when it comes to fighting,” Curtis said. “I love fighting, he’s probably the only person I genuinely know who enjoys fighting more than I do. I knew he could win this fight, I didn’t think he would make it look that easy. I don’t think he thought that he would make it look that easy.

“We all knew he could win, we were like, ‘Sean’s tough as nails, he’s patient, he’s aggressive, he can do this. He’s got to make it an ugly war and get Izzy to fight a dumb fight.’ No one ever thought that he would out-kickbox Izzy. I’m watching and I’m like, ‘This is not what you trained, oh my God.’”

Chris Curtis Was Expecting Sean Strickland to Try and Wrestle Adesanya at UFC 293

Given his status as a 7-to-1 underdog, many fight fans, and Curtis himself expected Sean Strickland to put his ground game to work considering it has been a bit of an Achille’s heel for ‘The Last Stylebender’ in previous outings. Needless to say, nobody expected ‘Tarzan’ to beat Adesanya in a kickboxing bout. And certainly not as decisively as he did.

“Honestly, the pressure, yeah, but we really hoped he would wrestle,” Curtis said. “Watching Sean spar, he would shoot, but he was still just kickboxing people, fighting like Sean, so you knew that was going to be a part of it but you’re hoping that he’d mix in wrestling. Make it hard, drag him down, wear him out.

“Everybody’s like, ‘Is he going to wrestle?’ I was like, ‘He’s trained to wrestle, but it’s Sean, so he’s going to get in there and…’ I said he’s probably going to in there and have a kickboxing match. Lo and behold, he went in there and he freaking won a kickboxing match against Izzy. I don’t think anyone saw that coming.”

Strickland has never been particularly known for his knockout power. With 20 career fights in the UFC, ‘Tarzan’ has only secured four finishes by way of knockout. But that didn’t stop Strickland from nearly ending things in the first after landing a massive right hand that sent Adesanya crashing to the canvas.

“People don’t realize, Sean actually hits hard,” Curtis said. “It’s not like “he’s going to knock you out in one punch” hard, but it’s enough thudding to where it stuns you. So when Izzy went down I went, ‘OK, he’s down, he’s landing shots’ and part of me was like ‘Oh my God if he finishes Izzy in one round, the world’s going to implode.’

“You’re excited and it’s crazy but then you’ve got to remember the Pereira fight and I’m like, ‘Bro, don’t take a bad risk here.’ You’re kind of like, ‘Win the fight, win the fight, but please don’t screw up here.’ And it’s crazy because I’ve never seen someone bat a thousand like that, he just did everything right. I don’t think he made a mistake that fight.”

Israel Adesanya releases statement after UFC 293 loss: ‘Let them delight in my demise, in the end, I will rise’

Israel Adesanya statement after UFC 293 let them delight in my demise I will riseRemaining majorly coy on his performance after his shocking UFC 293 championship fight loss to Sean Strickland over the course of last weekend in Sydney, Australia, former two-time champion, Israel Adesanya has vowed to “rise” once more – urging onlookers to “delight in my [his] demise”. Adesanya, who headlined UFC 293 last Saturday night ‘Down […]

Israel Adesanya statement after UFC 293 let them delight in my demise I will rise

Remaining majorly coy on his performance after his shocking UFC 293 championship fight loss to Sean Strickland over the course of last weekend in Sydney, Australia, former two-time champion, Israel Adesanya has vowed to “rise” once more – urging onlookers to “delight in my [his] demise”.

Adesanya, who headlined UFC 293 last Saturday night ‘Down Under’, saw his second title reign atop the middleweight division come to an end for the second time in the space of a year, dropping a one-sided unanimous decision (49-46, 49-46, 49-46) defeat to the above-mentioned, Strickland. 

Noting his desire to return to the Octagon in a timely fashion off the back of the upset defeat, Adesanya has been backed by his head coach, City Kickboxing leader, Eugene Bareman to score a title re-run with Strickland as soon as December, or the beginning of 2024 to boot – whilst also receiving the backing for a rematch by UFC leader, Dana White.

Israel Adesanya vows to “rise” again after his UFC 293 loss to Sean Strickland

Refusing to answer questions at the post-fight press conference, and instead electing to offer the microphone to his head coach, Bareman – who claimed Adesanya was looking to gain “protection” after the loss to Strickland, has urged critics of his to continue to “delight” in his downfall.

“Let them delight in my demise,” Israel Adesanya posted on his official Snapchat account. “In the end, I will rise.”

Promising a more competitive fight in a potential second squaring off between Strickland and Adesanya, the above-mentioned, Bareman claimed he was doubtful that the newly-crowned champion could put to rest their rivalry in an immediate rematch. 

“Israel (Adesanya) has to inflict more pain and damage on this man (Sean Strickland),” Bareman said. “And what that’s going to mean is we have to find a way to do it and minimize how much harm we kind of put in front of them. … You’re going to see a real good fight, an intriguing rematch against a great opponent and a great time.” 

“Realistically, end of the year, start of next year,” He explained. “I said one week because that was me eluding to, I think the game plan is still there. It still exists. I think that there’s some mental things there that we can quickly adjust in a week and then get back in there, and we could see a completely different fight. Whether Sean’s able to impose those mental blocks that he put on Israel, I don’t know if he’ll be able to do that again.” 

Do you want to see Israel Adesanya rematch Sean Strickland next?

Paulo Costa floated as potential opponent for Sean Strickland after UFC 293 title win: ‘I know they had beef’

Paulo Costa floated as title fight opponent for Sean Strickland they had beef UFCWhile an immediate championship rematch between Sean Strickland and former champion, Israel Adesanya has been widely floated in the fallout from UFC 293, the newly-minted champion’s teammate, Chris Curtis, has claimed Strickland should fight incoming UFC 294 feature, Paulo Costa in his first attempted title defense.  Strickland, who headlined his first pay-per-view event under the […]

Paulo Costa floated as title fight opponent for Sean Strickland they had beef UFC

While an immediate championship rematch between Sean Strickland and former champion, Israel Adesanya has been widely floated in the fallout from UFC 293, the newly-minted champion’s teammate, Chris Curtis, has claimed Strickland should fight incoming UFC 294 feature, Paulo Costa in his first attempted title defense. 

Strickland, who headlined his first pay-per-view event under the banner of the Dana White-led promotion last weekend, managed to turn in a one of the most jaw-dropping title upset victories to boot, defeating two-time champion, Adesanya in a one-sided unanimous decision (49-46, 49-46, 49-46) success in Sydney, Australia.

And in the immediate aftermath of the shocking upset triumphs, Strickland has been lined up to fight Adesanya in the immediate future in a rematch turnaround, particularly by promotional leader, White.

As far as Adesanya’s head coach is concerned, a rematch between his City Kickboxing student, and newly-crowned titleholder, Strickland could take place as soon as December at UFC 296, or in the opening months of next year.

Could Sean Strickland defend his title against Paulo Costa next?

However, according to middleweight contender, Curtis, the Xtreme Couture staple has claimed his training partner, Strickland and Brazilian favorite, Paulo Costa should share the Octagon next.

“Honestly, I really want to see him (Sean Strickland) fight Paulo (Costa),” Chris Curtis told MMA Fighting. “I know they had beef, and I know Sean really wanted to fight Paulo. He really wanted to beat him up and there was some talk going on there, and Paulo found a reason not to fight.” (Transcribed by MMA News)

The one-time middleweight title challenger has his hands most definitely full at the time of publication despite Curtis’ backing for a title fight with Strickland, with Costa set to feature at UFC 294 next month, welcoming undefeated Chechen finisher, Khamzat Chimaev back to the middleweight limit and active competition to boot.

Would you like to see Paulo Costa challenge Sean Strickland for the title?