GDT: UFC 293: Adesanya vs. Strickland

[m9]

And his performance last night speaks for itself

When he's not able to get the better of his opponent in a striking battle, he has no other path to victory

That's why he didn't attempt a single takedown, and instead, opted to get beat up on his feet for the majority of the fight

Am I wrong?

If you don't want to rank him as an "mma great" then I don't really care, but it should be entirely on his wins/losses and overall resume and not because you "see him as a kickboxer" or whatever.

 

[MMC]

 

[16Skippy]

I always love seeing a good upset, even though it cost me my parlay lol. Great job by Strickland, I'm suprised he didn't even need to mix things up with take down attempts.

Not to take away anything from Strickland, it was an epic upset but I was a little disappointed in Izzy and his team, he seemed to run out of ideas pretty quickly. I'm sure Strickland's jab and pressure were better than anticipated but there was almost no adaptation. City Kickboxing had a bunch of people competing on the card, I wonder if their coaches spread themselves too thin

 

[Neutrinos]

If you don't want to rank him as an "mma great" then I don't really care, but it should be entirely on his wins/losses and overall resume and not because you "see him as a kickboxer" or whatever.

The manner in which he wins and loses counts for something

Ovechkin is going to rack up considerable totals, and finish his career with an impressive resume, but I don't think he and his one-dimensional style are among the top 10 best players of all-time

I think it's reasonable to view Adesanya's career as a fighter along the same lines

If you disagree, great! Enjoy the rest of your day...

 

[Moncherry]

The issue I have with ranking Adesanya among the all-time greats is that I don't consider him a mixed-martial artists

I see him as a kickboxer who competes in MMA

Silva is regarded by many as the best striker in the history of the sport, but he's also a blackbelt in BJJ, and has 3 submission victories on resume

GSP got his start in karate, yet, many think of him as the best wrestler in MMA history, and he finished with 6 submission victories

Jones has a base in wrestling, but is known as one of the best strikers ever, and has 7 submission wins

Fedor has 16 wins by KO and 15 by submission


Adesanya is essentially a taller version of Stephen Thompson, which can obviously lead to success in MMA, but it limits their overall effectiveness as a fighter

Even as someone who doesn't like Izzy, I think this is a ridiculous thing to hold against him and it should be completely irrelevant when assessing his all-time standing.

MMA is not a discipline. It's a ruleset. How someone fights within the parameters of that ruleset is just as valid as any other method. Sometimes having a limited skillset inhibits fighters, sometimes it doesn't. Do you hold Khabib to the same scrutiny? He eventually developed better striking, but he won his fights almost entirely off the base of his wrestling/grappling. It doesn't matter.

It's actually been proven time and time again that being a specialist or elite in one aspect of MMA and competent enough in the others is just as good, if not better than simply being a jack-of-all-trades without a standout skill. If anything I would consider the fact that Izzy is merely a kickboxer and has accomplished as much as he has in MMA to be a point in his favor.

 

[Neutrinos]

Even as someone who doesn't like Izzy, I think this is a ridiculous thing to hold against him and it should be completely irrelevant when assessing his all-time standing.

MMA is not a discipline. It's a ruleset. How someone fights within the parameters of that ruleset is just as valid as any other method. Sometimes having a limited skillset inhibits fighters, sometimes it doesn't. Do you hold Khabib to the same scrutiny? He eventually developed better striking, but he won his fights almost entirely off the base of his wrestling/grappling. It doesn't matter.

It's actually been proven time and time again that being a specialist or elite in one aspect of MMA and competent enough in the others is just as good, if not better than simply being a jack-of-all-trades without a standout skill. If anything I would consider the fact that Izzy is merely a kickboxer and has accomplished as much as he has in MMA to be a point in his favor.

Did Khabib ever have a fight where his specialty didn't lead to a victory?

We just saw Adesanya lose a striking match to Strickland, and when it became obvious that he was losing that striking match, he had no other option than to continue with the same losing game plan

 

[m9]

Did Khabib ever have a fight where his specialty didn't lead to a victory?

We just saw Adesanya lose a striking match to Strickland, and when it became obvious that he was, in fact, losing that striking match, he had no other option than to continue with the same game plan

So which 185ers do you rank ahead of him all-time then? Silva I assume, even though he's a striker who lost fights striking. Anyone else?

Because my thought would be that yeah Adesanya is maybe flawed but a) so are most guys and b) it doesn't matter because he's still won enough fights to probably be the #2 185er all-time.

 

[Neutrinos]

So which 185ers do you rank ahead of him all-time then? Silva I assume, even though he's a striker who lost fights striking. Anyone else?

Because my thought would be that yeah Adesanya is maybe flawed but a) so are most guys and b) it doesn't matter because he's still won enough fights to probably be the #2 185er all-time.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't recall Silva losing a striking battle in the UFC until he was 38 years old

Also, it doesn't matter where I rank Izzy all-time at 185, as the standard being used isn't limited to that division

So, perhaps when I said I had difficulty ranking Izzy among the all-time greats, I wasn't as clear as I should have been. What I was trying to convey is that I don't consider him among the fighters in the top tier, despite his impressive resume

 

[Moncherry]

Did Khabib ever have a fight where his specialty didn't lead to a victory?

We just saw Adesanya lose a striking match to Strickland, and when it became obvious that he was losing that striking match, he had no other option than to continue with the same losing game plan

Arguably, against Gleison Tibau, even though he got the decision. Could never take him down and didn't/couldn't really do much else. Maybe Izzy should have wrestled, maybe he should have tried something else. Or maybe that was his best avenue to victory regardless of his skillset.

If that's your main argument, every other great fighter in history (except Jon Jones, officially) has had their style or game plan fail them at some point, regardless of how well-rounded they were. But this wasn't your original point, it wasn't just about him losing. You claimed you couldn't consider him among the greats because he wasn't an actual "mixed martial artist". Hypothetically, if Izzy went his entire career undefeated, but never wrestled or submitted anyone on the way, would it not matter as much?

Anyway, it's not really important. If part of your criteria to assess the greatest is a well-rounded skillset, that's your view.

Edit - I would also agree that it holds relevance when it comes to determining who the best MMA fighter is, just not really when it comes to evaluating historic placement. But to tell you the truth I don't even care about that discussion.

 

[MMC]

 

[m9]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't recall Silva losing a striking battle in the UFC until he was 38 years old

Maybe the question should be is Adesanya @ 34 on the way down a few years earlier due to those kickboxing miles? That's two fights he lost on the feet in the last year vs none in his previous years.

Also, it doesn't matter where I rank Izzy all-time at 185, as the standard being used isn't limited to that division

It does matter because if you still rank him as the 2nd or 3rd best 185er of all-time then saying he's not an all-time great is just kind of nit-picking. Nobody thinks he's a top5 guy or anything.

So, perhaps when I said I had difficulty ranking Izzy among the all-time greats, I wasn't as clear as I should have been. What I was trying to convey is that I don't consider him among the fighters in the top tier, despite his impressive resume

I think most feel the same after last night.

 

[ColbyChaos]

When's the last time the only champ in a title fight wore non-black fight gear?

Izzy wore green vs Pereira

 

[BGDDYKWL]

I was absolutely shocked by this result. Strickland seems so vanilla (in terms of fighting style). Just walks forward throwing straights. Doesn't have huge power, doesn't grapple. This seemed like a guy Adesanya could essentially toy with.

I'd love to hear an explanation as to why Adesanya struggled with him so much. It was mentioned on the telecast, but I do think Strickland has deceptive reach. Adesanya's long, and there were times he'd reach, Strickland would still be out of range, but then when Strickland was on the offensive he was able to land relatively easily.

Strickland also had A LOT of success with the push kicks. And not just those, but every time he raised his knee he'd get a reaction from Adesanya. It was interesting how a world class kickboxer was so neutralized by a jab, a straight, and push kicks.

Not to take anything away from Strickland because his defense is phenomenal, as is his pressure/patience, but it's surprising a style so seemingly simplistic could be so successful.

 

[McGuires Corndog]

I was absolutely shocked by this result. Strickland seems so vanilla (in terms of fighting style). Just walks forward throwing straights. Doesn't have huge power, doesn't grapple. This seemed like a guy Adesanya could essentially toy with.

I'd love to hear an explanation as to why Adesanya struggled with him so much. It was mentioned on the telecast, but I do think Strickland has deceptive reach. Adesanya's long, and there were times he'd reach, Strickland would still be out of range, but then when Strickland was on the offensive he was able to land relatively easily.

Strickland also had A LOT of success with the push kicks. And not just those, but every time he raised his knee he'd get a reaction from Adesanya. It was interesting how a world class kickboxer was so neutralized by a jab, a straight, and push kicks.

Not to take anything away from Strickland because his defense is phenomenal, as is his pressure/patience, but it's surprising a style so seemingly simplistic could be so successful.

Honestly, it almost seemed fixed so they didn’t have to pay out the betting lines on Izzy.

I’ve never seen someone so great normally, look so bad.

He looked like an amateur.

It doesn’t make sense.

 

[h2]

Honestly, it almost seemed fixed so they didn’t have to pay out the betting lines on Izzy.

I’ve never seen someone so great normally, look so bad.

He looked like an amateur.

It doesn’t make sense.

While watching the fight I was confused why Izzy was on the back foot for the entire fight, especially after getting dropped at the end of the 1st. He never dictated the fight and completely allowed Strickland to do so.

Was he too focused on countering? I have no idea why it played out the way it did.

 

[The Devil In I]

I think Adesanyas plan was built around the idea of leg kicking Strickland to the point he was on 1 leg and then pick him apart after. I could be misremembering but I'm pretty sure I heard going into Saturday that Strickland had the worst leg kick defense stats of the whole division, maybe all of UFC. He just never checked kicks. Then he shows up and he's either lifting his leg to check kicks, or is stepping out of the way, on almost every kick.

Adesanya is almost purely a counter striker at this point. He rarely takes the fight to an opponent and relies on them getting annoyed at not being able to hit him, and they lunge in and overreach looking for shots...and he cracks them. You can't really counter like that on a guy that throws almost nothing but jabs. And Strickland was interrupting his jab most of the fight so it cut off any real attempt at non-counter offense.

...that and I think getting dropped in the 1st by a guy known for having pillow fists might have really f***ed up his mentality.

 

[m9]

Dug into a little back of what we had talked about in the past with both Adesanya & Strickland to try to figure things out.

My first takeaway is that a fight that could have been a tell in terms of what Strickland could do here was his fight v Uriah Hall. He won that 25 minute fight against a weaker version of Adesanya using fairly rudimentary boxing and relying on his jab. He kept Hall on his back foot for much of the fight and he couldn't get anything going. Left jab, right hook. Pretty basic stuff and I haven't re-watched the entire fight, but some of the same stuff he did here.

Then lets go to why Strickland isn't ranked high and was such an underdog here. I think there's a chance it's more circumstance & optics than anything else. He's now 9-2 at 185lbs with his losses being to Pereira and Cannonier. The Cannonier fight was a true split decision that could have gone either way. So basically his two losses are a fight he might not even have lost and a KO to a guy in Pereira that has shown he can probably KO anyone. This is where the bad optics come in - he got embarrassed in his biggest fight and "lost" a boring fight with Cannonier for his second biggest fight. It's not that he's lost to the other top guys in the division.. he just hasn't fought many of them.

The only time we really talked much about Strickland here was last year after Adesanya/Whittaker II:

GDT: - UFC 271: Adesanya vs. Whittaker II

I do wonder what an elite wrestler could do vs Adesanya.. but there isn't that guy at 185lb right now. Maybe Chimaev eventually, but who knows. Well a guy like Weidman has wanted to get his opportunity but his chin is gone and his leg is taking so long to recover he'll never be in that...

forums.hfboards.com

Highlighting this one because we were trying to figure out future contenders for Adesanya and it's interesting that I don't even think Pereira was brought up yet (unless I missed it) and almost nobody gave Strickland a thought.

Romero & Whittaker were both somewhat close to beating Adesanya. It wouldn't shock me if Strickland was able to win a close decision with his style though I certainly wouldn't bet on it.

I think it's a bit under the radar that Adesanya just hasn't really done much in many of his recent fights.

I'm not highlighting this post from that thread in 2022 because it was me who said it (okay, maybe a little) because I thought Strickland had no chance here earlier this week. I'm trying to figure out why I thought Strickland had a chance in early 2022 and then no chance in September 2023. In that time both Adesanya & Strickland got KO'd by Pereira. Strickland won two other fights and had the Cannonier split loss. Adesanya beat Pereira in the rematch and beat Cannonier himself in an awful fight. Like, was much of this not giving Strickland a chance because he was on the wrong side of a split decision? He looked fine/good in every fight he's had other than the Pereira one.

 

[Taytro]

I was absolutely shocked by this result. Strickland seems so vanilla (in terms of fighting style). Just walks forward throwing straights. Doesn't have huge power, doesn't grapple. This seemed like a guy Adesanya could essentially toy with.

I'd love to hear an explanation as to why Adesanya struggled with him so much. It was mentioned on the telecast, but I do think Strickland has deceptive reach. Adesanya's long, and there were times he'd reach, Strickland would still be out of range, but then when Strickland was on the offensive he was able to land relatively easily.

Strickland also had A LOT of success with the push kicks. And not just those, but every time he raised his knee he'd get a reaction from Adesanya. It was interesting how a world class kickboxer was so neutralized by a jab, a straight, and push kicks.

Not to take anything away from Strickland because his defense is phenomenal, as is his pressure/patience, but it's surprising a style so seemingly simplistic could be so successful.

My opinion is that Izzy overlooked Strickland, particularly Strickland's head defence. Usually Izzy can just evade then counter and he scores his rounds by countering. He didn't change his gameplan, he did the exact same thing he always does but when he went to counter he wasn't hitting Strickland. He even said so in his corner, I think he said "I can't find him" or "I can't find my left hand" or something.

Strickland didn't have amazing output or anything like that which would overwhelm Izzy. He just walked forward, landed his shots, and when Izzy tried to hit him, he was out of range or he was blocking it. Izzy only landed 22 of 154 significant head strikes. It's similar output to most of his fights, for example in the Cannonier fight he threw 164 and landed 60 significant head strikes for a 36% land rate vs the abysmal 14% land rate in the Strickland fight.

People saying Izzy looked bad or he didn't show up don't understand that Izzy performed how he normally performs. He's a low output striker who relies on counters/evading to win rounds. He always gets walked down, Pereira was doing it when Izzy caught him and put him to sleep. He just couldn't hit Strickland.

If they fight again, I think it's a different story because Izzy is too smart to let that happen again but this fight was pretty cut and dry. Izzy tried to do what he normally does and Stickland just wasn't there to get hit.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

Honestly, it almost seemed fixed so they didn’t have to pay out the betting lines on Izzy.

I’ve never seen someone so great normally, look so bad.

He looked like an amateur.

It doesn’t make sense.

A -675 favorite pays nothing the sports books took a mild bath on this fight cause I don't think there was a ton of money on it to begin with.

On Saturday during the day it was posted that at MGM 80% of the bets and 75% of the money was on Strickland. Probably all people just throwing Hail Marys or beefing up parlays. I'm sure there was some decent coin on method of victory (KO) for Izzy though.

 

[Canes]

Late to the party but I enjoyed every second of the main event. Izzy got his ass kicked but they need to run it back ASAP.

 

[deleted user]

Definitely was eating a bit of crow within my social circle. I talked up Izzy a lot, lol. Strickland, jeez, gotta give the dude respect. He had a great night.

 

[Tobias Kahun]

Late to the party but I enjoyed every second of the main event. Izzy got his ass kicked but they need to run it back ASAP.

They definitely don’t.

He’s 1-2 in his last 3, he shouldn’t keep getting immediate rematches

 

[m9]

I think the immediate rematch will unfortunately just come down to whether or not they need a legit main event. Adesanya v Strickland 2 is a legit main event that will sell while Strickland v DDP is a tougher sell to casual fans. The sad thing is that it really shouldn't matter but I blame the UFC for normalizing undeserved rematches and not having the depth on cards to go in different directions.

 

[I am not exposed]

I think the immediate rematch will unfortunately just come down to whether or not they need a legit main event. Adesanya v Strickland 2 is a legit main event that will sell while Strickland v DDP is a tougher sell to casual fans. The sad thing is that it really shouldn't matter but I blame the UFC for normalizing undeserved rematches and not having the depth on cards to go in different directions.

Yeah there is more money to be made from Adesanya v Strickland 2 as well than any other match up.

As someone mentioned earlier, it is now becoming more common to having to beat the champ twice in a row!

 

[pistolpete11]

Dug into a little back of what we had talked about in the past with both Adesanya & Strickland to try to figure things out.

My first takeaway is that a fight that could have been a tell in terms of what Strickland could do here was his fight v Uriah Hall. He won that 25 minute fight against a weaker version of Adesanya using fairly rudimentary boxing and relying on his jab. He kept Hall on his back foot for much of the fight and he couldn't get anything going. Left jab, right hook. Pretty basic stuff and I haven't re-watched the entire fight, but some of the same stuff he did here.

Then lets go to why Strickland isn't ranked high and was such an underdog here. I think there's a chance it's more circumstance & optics than anything else. He's now 9-2 at 185lbs with his losses being to Pereira and Cannonier. The Cannonier fight was a true split decision that could have gone either way. So basically his two losses are a fight he might not even have lost and a KO to a guy in Pereira that has shown he can probably KO anyone. This is where the bad optics come in - he got embarrassed in his biggest fight and "lost" a boring fight with Cannonier for his second biggest fight. It's not that he's lost to the other top guys in the division.. he just hasn't fought many of them.

The only time we really talked much about Strickland here was last year after Adesanya/Whittaker II:

GDT: - UFC 271: Adesanya vs. Whittaker II

I do wonder what an elite wrestler could do vs Adesanya.. but there isn't that guy at 185lb right now. Maybe Chimaev eventually, but who knows. Well a guy like Weidman has wanted to get his opportunity but his chin is gone and his leg is taking so long to recover he'll never be in that...

forums.hfboards.com

Highlighting this one because we were trying to figure out future contenders for Adesanya and it's interesting that I don't even think Pereira was brought up yet (unless I missed it) and almost nobody gave Strickland a thought.



I'm not highlighting this post from that thread in 2022 because it was me who said it (okay, maybe a little) because I thought Strickland had no chance here earlier this week. I'm trying to figure out why I thought Strickland had a chance in early 2022 and then no chance in September 2023. In that time both Adesanya & Strickland got KO'd by Pereira. Strickland won two other fights and had the Cannonier split loss. Adesanya beat Pereira in the rematch and beat Cannonier himself in an awful fight. Like, was much of this not giving Strickland a chance because he was on the wrong side of a split decision? He looked fine/good in every fight he's had other than the Pereira one.

I think it was less who has he lost to than it is who has he beat?

I've always said he's a good fighter, but I thought his ceiling was limited. Imavov, Hermansson (by SD), Hall, Jotko, Allen. These are all good fighters that he has beat, but none of them suggest he's championship level. I don't think I need to list out all the guys that Izzy has beat for comparison.

I take your point about losing a split decision to Cannonier, but at the same time, while Izzy-Cannonier was boring, pretty much everybody thought it was a clear 50-45 or 49-46 win for Izzy. And even though they both got KO'ed by Pereira, Izzy was up 3-1 on all of the judge's scorecards and obviously KO'ed him in the rematch.

On paper, it didn't seem like a good style matchup either. Strickland doesn't have the wrestling of even Whittaker or Vettori (not that either is that great of a wrestler). Doesn't have the power of Pereira or Cannonier or Romero. He has exactly 1 submission in the UFC in his debut in 2014. So it seemed like it was going to be a stand up fight. Looking at their resumes, including Izzy's decorated kickboxing career, there was no real evidence to think Strickland is a better striker. If anybody picked Strickland, I don't see how it was anything but a "gut feeling" or "MMA is a crazy sport" or "I don't like Izzy, so I'm picking Strickland because that's what I want to happen" type of pick.



Point being, Izzy being a massive favorite was the rational conclusion to draw IMO. I don't know that there was really some blatant thing we all missed. It's just yet another reminder that anything can happen in this sport. I think if you watch it long enough, you will eventually learn this lesson only to forget this lesson many times. I know within the least 1.5-2 years, I re-learned this with Nunes-Pena, applied it to fights like Usman-Edwards and Valentina-Grasso (I picked Usman and Valentina, but I didn't count out Edwards or Grasso), only to forget it with Izzy-Strickland.