Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted September 10, 2023 Author Paid Members Share Posted September 10, 2023 I’m not sure it’s so much a physical decline with Izzy yet. He’s always been more hittable than you’d expect someone with his striking experience to be. Remember how much success T-Rex armed Gastelum had getting in range and hurting him? And that was back in 2019 before Izzy even won the belt. Strickland tagged him good and proper in that first round and from there it seemed like a combination of him just never letting up from there and Adesanya never seeming to fully recover and going into his shell a bit. He genuinely seemed to be out of ideas the longer it went on, which I don’t think is how anyone saw it playing out at all. I hate saying it about pro fighters from the safety of my sofa but it almost seemed like Izzy kind of broke mentally by the later rounds. He kept backing onto the fence and getting drawn into a jabbing match at times and basically maximised Strickland’s chances. But as much as I dislike him, I’ve got to give the credit to Strickland for that. He fought out of his skin last night and I honestly never thought he had a performance like that in him. I don’t see him having a long reign but the fact he won the thing at all is mental to me. Still a cock though. All I kept thinking watching that first round was the first Anderson Silva vs Chael Sonnen fight where Chael shocked everyone by hurting Anderson on the feet. I was expecting an Izzy comeback like Anderson did against Chael the whole fight and it just never came. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted September 10, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted September 10, 2023 That was probably one of the best performances in UFC history. Strickland stood in punching range of arguably the best striker in the division's history and Izzy barely landed a decent a shot on him, Strickland's pressure style was pure kryptonite to Izzy. The biggest men's title upset since GSP/Serra surely? Whoever would have predicted it? There was a feeling starting to build during the week with Strickland gaining more and more support from the Australian fans, it just all seemed to be going in his favour. I think everyone expected Izzy to style on him though. I thought Jan Blachowicz tweet with regard to Sean Strickland's style summed it up best: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted September 10, 2023 Author Paid Members Share Posted September 10, 2023 Big Jan‘s tweet game has came a long way from the days when he was threatening to “fist” Jon Jones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted September 10, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted September 10, 2023 Jan gets freaky after a few brews Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted September 10, 2023 Author Paid Members Share Posted September 10, 2023 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted September 10, 2023 Share Posted September 10, 2023 1 hour ago, wandshogun09 said: But as much as I dislike him, I’ve got to give the credit to Strickland for that. He fought out of his skin last night and I honestly never thought he had a performance like that in him. Strickland has always been a very good fighter. He's by no means a great, but he's very good at what he does. His defence is vastly underrated, and I'm sure I've said before that his footwork is something else. He's a good MMA boxer. Couple that with his work ethic, cardio, and his decent chin, and he's always going to be a tough night for most fighters. He probably faces Adesanya in the rematch going by Uncle Dana's excuses, and to be honest, that's probably the most winnable fight for him. He's going to come unglued against a world-class wrestler, but he could implement the same game plan against Adesanya and win again. His pressure game clearly isn't something Adesanya could cope with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted September 11, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted September 11, 2023 What world class wrestlers are there at 185 though? There isn't a powerhouse NCAA style wrestler in the top 15. That said, if Chimaev gets through Paulo Costa, the UFC will probably pull the trigger on that one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted September 11, 2023 Author Paid Members Share Posted September 11, 2023 Fuck, Caio Borralho actually called to a tee how the fight would play out… Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted September 12, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted September 12, 2023 Strickland has busted his belt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted September 12, 2023 Share Posted September 12, 2023 Imagine if he took that belt everywhere with him, constantly dinging it? Only to show up for his first title defence with it all covered in tape like the hardcore title? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted September 13, 2023 Share Posted September 13, 2023 Dana White doing Dana White shit... After the UFC 293 event he was asked about the rematch between Adesanya and Strickland. His answer? “I think you do the rematch, absolutely. The rematch is interesting.” Then this week he said... “I think if you remember that night, people said, ‘What do you think, you think rematch?’ I said, ‘Yeah, the rematch sounds great. I saw the stupid f****** s*** that was written by all these stupid f****** websites. Never once did I say, ‘Yes, we’re going to f****** do this rematch.’ There’s obviously lots of options out there, and we’ll see what happens. But yes, I’m not opposed to an Israel rematch. We’ll see how it goes.” He's some lad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Carbomb Posted September 14, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted September 14, 2023 He wants his boy to get a winnable title defence in so he can say he's a legit champion. Anybody else and it's an immediate rematch. You're definitely right there, David. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted September 14, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted September 14, 2023 11 minutes ago, Carbomb said: He wants his boy to get a winnable title defence in so he can say he's a legit champion. His boy? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Carbomb Posted September 14, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted September 14, 2023 1 hour ago, Egg Shen said: His boy? Strickland. He knows there's a good chance that Adesanya's capable enough of adapting his game to take the belt back off him, so he's dialling back talk of an immediate rematch, completely against UFC's booking policy, in which that might happen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Bus Surfer Posted September 14, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted September 14, 2023 (edited) To call Strickland 'Dana's boy' is laughable considering the UFC seemingly didn't want to give him the title fight at all until Izzy pushed for it and there was no one else. Strickland's coach has come out and said the fight was in jeopardy and that Jared Cannoniers (who was there as backup) had coaches flown over last minute after Strickland punched a fan in the guts whilst doing media and they were concerned the UFC would pull him. I'm not even sure that was the point David was making. Read to me that Dana was flip flopping other than anything else.. If he was hell bent on 'his boy' getting a defence in so he can call himself a real champion, surely he would have shit on the idea of a rematch to start with? If you've seen or heard anything from Dana regarding Strickland before or after the fight, it's pretty obvious he is massively indifferent and is crossing his fingers Strickland doesn't do anything else stupid. Izzy is one of their biggest stars, but I'd say the vast majority of people are against an immediate rematch. He hasn't made a defence during this reign and the win was very one sided and not a flash KO that could be debated as being lucky. There are a ton of challengers backed up including a potential match up with Khamzat if he gets through Costa next month. Or are we just assuming it's a race thing? Edited September 14, 2023 by Silky Kisser Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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