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The fight played out in a strange way, with Adesanya, an
accomplished kickboxer, being completely thrown off and ineffective because of
Strickland's constant pressure on the feet. Despite the fight never hitting the
ground, Strickland was able to easily coast to victory by simply outworking
Adesanya and keeping the champion's back to the cage.
Adesanya entered the fight as a -650 favorite, but
Strickland never seemed uncomfortable from the opening bell, forcing the action
and using simple strikes to outwork an ineffective Adesanya. Strickland even
came close to stopping the fight with a big flurry in Round 1 that badly hurt
Adesanya.
Adesanya appeared to have gathered himself at the start of
Round 2 and had his most effective five minutes of the fight, though much of
that success seemed to come because Strickland's own offensive output
decreased.
There was never a moment across the fight where it felt as
though Adesanya was in control. Despite being an accomplished kickboxer,
Adesanya appeared lost because of Strickland's simple pressure-based approach
to the fight. Rather than utilize his stronger and more technical striking
tools, Adesanya circled around the outside of the cage, rarely planting his
feet to let loose with any meaningful offense.
Adesanya's lack of offense paired with Strickland's constant
forward movement meant that after the conclusion of five rounds, all three
official scorecards read 49-46 in Strickland's favor, crowning a new -- and
unexpected -- UFC middleweight champion.
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"You guys know, Izzy is a bad motherf---er, guys,"
Strickland said after his historic win. "He's beaten the majority of my
friends pretty easily. I was doubting myself at times but the fans in
Australia, you motivated me. ... In the fourth round, when I heard you yelling,
it motivated me, guys."
The fight was the first defense for Adesanya in his second
stint as middleweight champion. After suffering a knockout loss to Alex Pereira
in late 2022, he came back to score his own knockout earlier this year and
regain the championship.
The plan was for Adesanya to defend the belt against Dricus
Du Plessis, playing on an ugly rivalry between the two over whether
Nigerian-born Adesanya or South African-born Du Plessis was "more
African." When Du Plessis was unable to accept a fight at UFC 293,
Strickland got the call, with nearly everyone in the MMA game writing him off
as having no chance of beating a technical assassin like Adesanya.
Instead, Strickland shocked the world and did serious damage
to Adesanya's place as an all-time great in the sport's history.
"I had a different plan for this but again life throws
curveballs at you," Adesanya said at the post-fight press conference.
"Win or lose, I wasn't going to say much anyway but right now, I lost
tonight to the better man on the night. I just want to go and be with people
who care about me -- my team and they're waiting for me so I'm going to do
that.
"But I will leave you in the capable hands of a man who
is much smarter than me, I'll admit this on worldwide national media, I'll
leave you with Eugene Bareman. He'll handle this for the first time. I want to
go chill, have some breakfast, build my family and till next time."
Elsewhere on the card, Alexander Volkov scored a
second-round submission of hometown favorite Tai Tuivasa with an ezekiel choke.
The former Bellator heavyweight champ picked apart the Aussie fighter on the
feet before dropping him and securing full mount, where he then smothered
Tuivasa for the unique submission. Plus, both Justin Tafa and Tyson Pedro were
able to send the hometown fans happy with first-round knockouts in brutal
fashion.