UFC 293: Adesanya vs. Strickland

The official Tapology discussion thread for the event!

Mark my words

wow Izzy ran out of the press conference and his coach is taking questions.

Strickland mentally broke him...

@Noxx 

 thank you pure luck in those perfect bonus , still can’t believe the lack of KO of some of the guys but I made some money at end 

@Rah123 

mark my words

 Izzy was sad and hurt by the f word bombs tonight.
He couldnt perform on that acount.

That how Izzy fight as of late tho, he has tons of “sparring match’s”, just this time it doesn’t work, and he didn’t change it up  when it didn’t work

Congrats to Strickland, watching a big upset is alway going to be entertaining to me, 

Anyone who picked the Izzy needs to go sit facing the corner and think very hard about what you’ve done. Strickland at those odds was mana from the betting gods and you spat it out 

LOL I MADE A JOKE ABOUT PRETENDING TO BE A GENIUS PICKING STRICKLAND, IT ACTUALLY WORKED OUT LOL

Hey Sean, I'm German and I love you😜

I don't think Strickland is better than expected. He's still mostly mid. But I do think Israel Adesanya is worse than people care to admit. He has regressed so much as a striker since focusing on MMA full time and it's been evident especially in the last two years. Strickland didn't have some master game plan, either. Dude walked down Izzy with 1-2's almost the entire fight. And his defense looked spot on considering Strickland's defense has been one of his worst aspects for the past few years. And it didn't even seem drastically better here yet he still made Adesanya look like a fool. 

Adesanya beat Pereira last time out because Pereira got reckless and acted a fool considering his mind is on murdering Izzy at all times of the day ever day. It cost him, no doubt about it, but as a fighter, I legitimately think Poatan ****s all over Adesanya. The Strickland fight comparison between the two, the Jan fight comparison between the two. Pereira is just a better, more complete fighter.

Israel Adesanya as MW champ was a net-negative for the most part. He has underwhelmed relatively consistently and he's proven to be almost always entirely missable in terms of fight quality as well. He took MW, a division that was consistently praised, and led it into being one of the worst divisions in the UFC alongside HW and LHW. He still fights like he's a kickboxing world champion but the regression in those kickboxing skills is super obvious and it's ******* bizarre tbh. And despite his kickboxing getting noticeably worse, fight after fight, he's hardly improved any other aspect of his game outside of takedown defense. 

He's been champion for years and the most memorable part of his run will be him getting dropped by SEAN STRICKLAND - a guy who, before tonight - was considered by just about everybody to be one of the most mid title contenders in UFC history. It's embarrassing. I think Du Plessis would've finished Izzy had that fight happened instead and I think Strickland/Du Plessis is interesting. Shame Adesanya will get a rematch for virtually no reason.

* Edited at 09.10.2023, 1:34 AM ET *

What do you think, is this the biggest surprise title fight in UFC history?

I‘m Not Suprised🥳

***

either this is a corrupt fight or now Adesanya has only 50% of his peak form at this moment

the usual performance from Strickland
is the worst performance from Adesanya

You are partly right: Strickland isn't elite but his ability to check leg kicks, block punches with his hands or elbows and slips strikes was excellent tonight. 
In my opinion Adesanya was a kickboxer who achieved great success as a champion in an era where the level of wrestling/grappling in his division was very low: Literally the 5 best wrestlers in the current Top 15 (Chimaev and Nickal are not ranked fighters in MW) are Whittaker, DDP, Hermansson, Vettori and Brunson and of those 5: Dricus, Rob and Marvin are main strikers, Hermansson is effective in grappling but wrestling acuity isn't a strong point in his game and Brunson has the windmill striking and in general he is very disorderly in his strategies. It also leaves a lot to say that a ''striking genius'' tries the same combination ans strategies over and over again for 5 rounds instead of target more the body during round 3 or 4 or even trying to work in close range with thai clinch as Robbie Lawler when Strickland went to put more pressure during the second half of the fight.

and they still don't want to admit how good you are.

Congrats to Strickland, I bet he survives max to round 3. Very poor performance by Adesanya, waiting for him to tell something about it.

I think Strickland has good chances against Dricus.
Feel so bad for Bobby knuckles

FEELING VINDICATED LETS GO SEAN