With solely a month to spare, a most important occasion has lastly materialized for UFC 293 in Sydney, Australia. On September tenth, Israel Adesanya will defend the middleweight belt in opposition to the #5 ranked contender, Sean Strickland.
Placing collectively a most important occasion for this card was a tough course of. Each single bout on the cardboard features a fighter from Australia or New Zealand, and the UFC meant to e book one of many area’s two champions, Israel Adesanya and Alexander Volkanovski, for the primary occasion.
Matchmaking for 293’s title struggle was placed on maintain till the result of July 8’s UFC 290. This occasion noticed Volkanovski defend his title in opposition to Jair Rodriguez and Dricus Du Plessis defeat Robert Whittaker in what was thought-about to be a middleweight title eliminator. Sadly for the UFC, Volkanovski introduced in his octagon interview that he can be getting into for shoulder surgical procedure and wouldn’t be able to make the short turnaround required to struggle in Sydney.
In the meantime, Dricus Du Plessis secured a stunning TKO end over Robert Whittaker and, after a verbal confrontation with Adesanya within the post-fight, appeared like the plain option to headline 293. Nonetheless, this matchup additionally fell aside within the following weeks as Du Plessis introduced that he too wanted to rehabilitate an harm and wouldn’t be able to struggle in September.
This left this UFC scrambling by the middleweight rankings searching for a contender to pit in opposition to Adesanya. The one high contenders who had not misplaced their final bout have been #3 Jared Cannonier and #5 Sean Strickland. Cannonier fought Adesanya simply final 12 months, and misplaced by a one-sided determination (50-45, 50-45, 49-46) in a low-volume standup struggle that was broadly thought-about ‘boring’ and noticed followers exit the stadium in the course of the motion. In mild of this current efficiency, Cannonier was not a super candidate for 293, regardless of a dominant win over Marvin Vettori on June seventeenth.
This technique of elimination left Strickland because the most definitely candidate to problem Adesanya in Sydney. Since struggling a brutal KO loss to Alex Pereira, Strickland has put collectively a stable sequence of main-event performances: a razor-thin break up determination loss to Canonier in a aggressive matchup, a unanimous determination victory over Nassourdine Imavov, and a formidable second-round TKO victory over Abusupiyan Magomedov. The sequence of wins most likely wouldn’t have sufficed to warrant a title shot if issues have been business-as-usual, however the uncommon set of circumstances main into UFC 293 sealed the deal.
Israel Adesany has opened as a serious betting favourite (-350) and Strickland as a big underdog (+275), per Bovada as of August ninth. These odds indicate that Adesanya has a 77.78% probability of rising victorious.
In different phrases, Strickland has a path to victory, however it’s a very slim one. Adesanya has confronted and defeated all the high contenders within the weight class aside from Du Plessis. Strickland has solely clashed with Jared Canonier and the previous Middleweight champion Alex Pereira and was defeated in each matches.
On paper, the stylistic matchup appears a lot better for Adesanya. Strickland has a high-pressure, high-volume, low-power fashion the place he leans into his cardio and fees his opponent with easy combos and an ungainly however profitable defensive fashion based mostly totally on parries. His protection is missing in terms of leg-kicks, and he’s susceptible to counterstrikes whereas he’s within the pocket. Adesanya tends to select away at his opponents at vary and scores huge photographs primarily when he counters. It’s not laborious to check Adesanya racking up factors over Strickland at vary, after which touchdown harmful photographs when his opponent rushes into the pocket.
Though he tends to favor a pure boxing fashion, Strickland has demonstrated actual proficiency at offensive grappling in a few of his earlier fights. He secured a takedown that modified the momentum of a spherical in opposition to Nassourdine Imavov and has demonstrated dominant floor and pound within the ending sequences of his fights in opposition to Bubba McDaniel and Nordine Taleb. Adesanya has demonstrated somewhat poor defensive grappling expertise, and on the one event he fought a proficient offensive grappler in Jan Blachowicz, he was soundly defeated. If Strickland can incorporate grappling into his sport plan and preserve his high-pressure fashion, he might need a path to victory.
It can most likely be the antics that happen through the build-up and the press conferences that may promote this struggle, somewhat than the dynamics of the matchup. Strickland is understood for his brash and entertaining habits throughout press conferences and interviews, and Adesanya is a UFC famous person who constantly attracts huge PPV numbers. The 2 received right into a heated verbal trade the final time they appeared on the identical press convention, and have been taking photographs at one another in interviews and over social media ever since. Whether or not or not the struggle finally ends up being aggressive, the build-up definitely might be.
Alex Fallow is an arts and tradition author based mostly in the US. He’s additionally a longtime MMA fan and likes to cowl the game. Yow will discover extra of his writing, on matters aside from MMA, on his web site: https://medium.com/@alexfallow
