Brendan Schaub has given his assessment on what made Israel Adesanya struggle against Sean Strickland at UFC 293.
We have a new UFC middleweight champion following UFC 293. Strickland was on Adesanya's tail the moment the fight began. A big knockdown in round 1 from Strickland gave Adesanya a reality check. He wasn't inside the Octagon with a pushover.
In fact, it was Strickland's pressure that had Adesanya backpeddling. Strickland captured UFC gold via unanimous decision.
During an episode of "The Schaub Show," Brendan Schaub discussed what made Sean Strickland more effective than Israel Adesanya's past opposition.
"Those guys would be the aggressor and they were punching first,' Schaub said. "They were trying to knock Izzy out first. Izzy would counter and knock them out. So, he got away with that for a long time. He set up traps with feints 'cause he's a counter-puncher, he's a counter-striker. So, he would feint to get you to throw a big shot. He could tell where that shot was coming from, was able to capitalize on it, knock you out or land a big shot, and score points and eventually get you out of there.
"What Sean Strickland did that was brilliant was while Sean Strickland was the aggressor, he was also, a lot of the times, the counter-puncher. Meaning, he would go and he'd wait for Izzy to do something, and then he'd capitalize. Not even Izzy throwing a big shot or throwing a jab, but he would capitalize on all of that and Izzy couldn't get his awkward timing down."
An immediate rematch might be in order. UFC President Dana White has already expressed his belief that Strickland vs. Adesanya 2 is the direction to go in next.
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