Nigerian-born Israel Adesanya will look to re-establish his middleweight title dominance when he faces surprise challenger Sean Strickland in the championship main event of UFC 293, set for the Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney, Australia, on Sunday morning.
Adesanya (24-2) reclaimed the middleweight belt in stunning style back in April, knocking out his nemesis, Alex Pereira, in the second round of their UFC 287 headliner.
‘The Last Stylebender’ initially looked set to make the first defence of his second stint as champion against South Africa’s Dricus Du Plessis, who earned a title shot by defeating another of Adesanya’s long-time rivals, Robert Whittaker, but ‘Stillknocks’ picked up an injury in the bout which means his title shot will likely have to wait until 2024.
In place of Du Plessis, the UFC has turned to Strickland (27-5), who has racked up back-to-back wins over Nassourdine Imavov and Abusupiyan Magomedov this year.
‘Tarzan’ has sparked a war of words with Adesanya by taking a shot at the latter’s time spent training in China: “Sean we might have you fly across the world on a 5 week notice to fight the Chinese Champion,” he wrote as part of a rant on Twitter last month.
Adesanya’s response was swift and brutal: “LOL [laugh out loud] “5 weeks”. You [have] been training since your last fight. We [are] both fighting on short notice, you’re not doing nothing special, you dirty c***.”
Welterweight UFC fighter Kevin Holland believes the champion will have too much for Strickland to cope with: “Styles make fights, and Strickland doesn’t really like to get hit with big kicks and Izzy [Adesanya] has cardio,” he explained.
“[Magomedov] didn’t have any, obviously. With Strickland v Izzy, Strickland likes to do the man dance – but I don’t think he has enough dance moves to dance with Israel Adesanya.
“I think Izzy picks him apart, Izzy picks Du Plessis apart. It’ll probably be s***, little leg kicks, a few push kicks, every once in a while he’ll throw something big and spinning. Izzy has more chances of knocking out Strickland because Strickland will take more chances than Du Plessis does.”
The rest of the fight card features, among others, Australian favourite Tai Tuivasa taking on Alexander Volkov in a heavyweight bout, and Angolan-Portuguese fighter Manel Kape facing Felipe Dos Santos in the flyweight division.
UFC 293 – Fight card
- Main event: Middleweight championship: Israel Adesanya v Sean Strickland
- Heavyweight: Tai Tuivasa v Alexander Volkov
- Flyweight: Manel Kape v Felipe Dos Santos
- Heavyweight: Justin Tafa v Austen Lane
- Light Heavyweight: Tyson Pedro v Anton Turkalj
- Light Heavyweight: Carlos Ulberg v Jung Da-un
- Featherweight: Jack Jenkins v Chepe Mariscal
- Lightweight: Jamie Mullarkey v John Makdessi
- Welterweight: Mike Mathetha v Charlie Radtke
- Featherweight: Shane Young v Gabriel Miranda