Strickland SHOCKS Adesanya to become the NEW Middleweight Champion | UFC 293 RECAP | CBS Sports

and for more let's welcome CBS Sports combat analyst and co-host of the award-winning morning fight Brian Campbell Sean Strickland is the new

middleweight

champion

what just happened you know quote the late Jack Buck from Kirk Gibson's home run in the Series World Cup 88 I don't think what I just saw is, in any way, the reason we watch sport or why we watch combat

sports

in general, right in the theater of the unexpected, but this is what you have to do understand with this specific discomfort, you cannot write this. This isn't Leon Edwards knocking out Kamara Usman with a head kick in the fifth round.

Not even Holly Holm overwhelms Ronda Rousey or even Matt Sarah knocking out George St Pierre. These are the items on the short list for the biggest upsets in UFC history. fighter in Sean Strickland who hasn't beaten the number one contenders required to get this title shot and was really only here because Adesanya had completely cleaned out the division by stepping into the cage against arguably the best striker in UFC history and beating him up . over 25 minutes completely dismantling him, confusing him and leaving him with no other options, surprises happen in combat

sports

, it is a violent sport when we talk about MMA, there are so many ways to lose, this was not an errant punch, a kick to the head, a fluke, cutting this was the very definition of the old cliché we always talk about in boxing styles making fights Sean Strickland stood in front of Arasania throughout the fight, supported him on the octagon warning track around the cage circle and pressed him constantly. him with what the wild punches know with the defense with aplomb with the game planning of his extremely underrated coach Eric Nixik and we saw Sean Strickland who had gone through five

champion

ship rounds and four of his last six fights broke the performance of not only His career just went away. and he painted a masterpiece against one of the greatest fighters in the history of the sport, who earlier this year regained his UFC

middleweight

title with a resounding knockout against his career rival.

Things like this you can't predict, all you can do is be humble, so by the way, he just did it in Izzy's backyard. Izzy lives in New Zealand, this was in Australia, but this American road warrior, Sean Strickland, proved once and for all that you don't win fights on paper, you have to get in there and win it the hard way, congratulations to the new world middleweight champion and saw a sign of what was to come at the end of the first round, just as Blitz his odyssanya against the cage and essentially Saved by the bell is arasania but also BC, that fourth round was absolutely critical, the appearance of this whole fight was critical.

I'm still trying to put this into perspective, Hakeem, look here's the difference, ultimately when we had hurt this fight, we called a horrible style matchup for Strickland, why is Adesanya walking? knocks you down or if he's backing up and webbing just right to catch you with clean counterattacks he's got the power the technique the creativity you're never comfortable with Strickland flipped the script on him constantly pushing him back only it was Sean Strickland's defender using a modified Philadelphia boxing style that we've seen Floyd Mayweather do a million times that's so hard to get off your shoulders High defense High, anyone fooled, the most creative incredible striker we've ever seen almost knocked him out all the way first round and then peaked in the championship rounds to regress and swell the left eye of an arasania didn't age overnight, it didn't necessarily seem like this was a style, it just completely dominated someone in a scenario where bettors They made this ridiculous. uh unassigned line almost a seven to one favorite for most of this build, again, it wasn't a fluke, it wasn't a fluke kick, it wasn't a dominant round Sonya won the second round on the three judges' scorecards and that seemed about right, but for the rest of the 20 minutes of this championship fight it was all Shawn Strickland the whole time Hakeem, what do you want from me?

What am I saying here? I've seen surprises come and go. I've never seen one at all. So it's incredible to watch live sports, that's why we take a good look at these moments, things that happen like this. Sean Strickland enters the octagon pulling off a massive upset plus 520 on the money line coming in and you look at Adesanya, right? He comes in saying look, he is a dangerous man, he has nothing to lose, everything to gain, this is, you know, trying to continue his legacy with Pat, we already know that Otisanya is one of the best fighters in the history of the UFC, what did he do wrong? your perspective, what caused it because it looked like he was, he wasn't on the offensive for much of this fight, yeah, look, he was backed up in an awkward position.

To begin with, Strickland has an awkward style, but as I mentioned before, it's mixed pressure. with defense, but suddenly he has a history of fighting well when he moves back, because his precise counterattack is so precise and so powerful that he instantly disciplines his opponents and forces them to step back and reset. . Strickland was on him the entire time, but he wasn't there to get hit and that's the key, very smart defensive head movement, a tall guard with his hands that was constantly moving and what we ended up seeing, if he came in here and came out, I would fight with that asanya you would do.

Well, there has always been a hole in the great Odyssanya's game, he doesn't seem to take the fight to the ground, yes, he has good takedown defense, but that is a vulnerable area in his game. Strickland beat him in exactly the areas where Otisanya normally dominates, so I'll point out a bit of a lack of urgency in Arasania, especially in the championship rounds which I didn't love, but the reason that was there is because he's used to get his way when he decides to tag along with you, he's used to setting traps and making you pay with the kind of punches that end fights, don't remember that, rewatch the rematch with Alex Padeta earlier this year in April, we're off signal , you had one of the biggest comeback victories with a celebration for the ages, but just a few months later he had an opponent who we argued didn't belong in the cage in front of him, thinking he was tricking him, executing him, hurting him, dropping him and then lifting that title and maybe it's Sean Strickland's personality. that makes this so unthinkable, he has been talking all week, he even said in the post weigh in interview on Friday that for you Aussie fans for supporting me this week, I will say hello to the CTE, the brain trauma that will come from me . walking into the punches against arasania only it wasn't reckless it was it was prepared it was perfection Shawn Strickland painted a masterpiece tonight let's say the coach's name one more time Eric nystick a master game planner in his corner they did it they did it The Impossible and no it was a fluke, that's what's so hard to bite, but for Otisanya it wasn't his night at all, yes he won the second round, yes he recovered very well from the knockdown and almost finished at the end of the first round. but he was never able to recover from the impact of that and he was never able to put his offense on the first skier to force Sean Strickland to take steps back and when you have someone pushing you that has defensive responsibility and a tank of gas for days like Strickland does. you can be sneaky.

I just want to remind people that Strickland is a guy without a dominant fighting game without a power knockout, but what we underestimated was his poise and while he was fooling us that he was going to come out and go for The His knockout execution in the big stage on the road in Australia when championship-level execution mattered most and that's why he's wearing UFC gold. He predicted this correctly. BC, he said: I'm going to embrace my inner Kelvin gaslim. I mean, he told us what he was going to do and he went out and executed it and you even played the morning match sound bite and Luke Thomas, your esteemed co-host, said, "Beep and I love that, and this is what happens, beeps".

I love what ends up happening here now for Ottasania. He was beginning the second reign as middleweight champion, he lost to Alex Peretta and won back. Maybe follow the same path here? Should we run it back with Sean Strickland? Well, it will be very interesting for a There are a few different reasons why one drinks a stupid c: South Africa's rising middleweight scored an upset victory over former champion Robert Whittaker earlier this year and I thought maybe that was the biggest middleweight upset I've seen in UFC history until tonight, what he did was apparently secure a title shot, he just wasn't ready from a health standpoint to turn around so quickly that he got passed for high for this fight and there is a feeling that rising stud Hamza chamayev, who has now officially moved up to middleweight and has a big fight ahead of him. against Paulo Costa could be next in line with a big win if you're UFC.

We've seen in recent history a sort of benefit of the doubt given to long reigning champions to give them that immediate rematch when they lose. I think the difference in this The thing was that Israel Sonia just lost the belt to him a year ago, yes, she won it back in that incredible rematch, but it might be time for New Blood to be served here at middleweight. Hamza Chamaya looks like a future star, almost the face of the franchise if he can break through. pass and reach the highest level of the title I mentioned drinking as duplicity, it may be time for the new guard to take over because Sean Strickland is once again not a fluke Victory is not a fluke a knockout a 25 audit minutes from what Israel used to be In my opinion, Sonia is so great when you get beaten so badly that you don't deserve an immediate rematch, it doesn't really matter who you are.

Sean Strickland in his first UFC title fight wins the title. The new middleweight champion defeats Israel Adesanya. Brian Campbell rips it up. down for us here at CBS Sports hqbc thanks to the winners of the morning fight of the best MMA programming two years in a row looking for a hat trick. You can scan the QR code on your screen right now to vote for the morning fight with Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell, vote and follow today.