Last nights fight proved that Sean Strickland is not a fluke

[Dana's Conscience]

I'm pretty bummed that they gave Dricus the decision. Like him or not, Sean brings personality to the division, and I dislike when guys in the top 5 end up passing the belt around to one another with no consistency. In 14 months, the MW strap has changed hands four times. Makes the title seem kind of worthless. Just who gets matched with who on what night.

 

[DelanoRunnymede]

What about in his last 7? 4-3? Is that why you stopped counting? Is that why there's that famous quote "Statistics are the #1 form of lying"?

Or 9-3 in his last 12 which is even more impressive sounding. I picked the fight where he started fighting the top of the division. Hermansson was pretty highly regarded when he beat him as well so you’re right, could have chose 4-3.

It seems a lot of people are high on him, so maybe I’m just not seeing what the rest of you are seeing and I’m wrong about him.

 

[Adamant]

He's top tier AND speaks the truth. Dude is a class act.

 

[michi972]

He’s 3-3 in his last 6 fights.

And 2 of them being highly controversial and two of them against champions.

 

[michi972]

I feel like the middleweight is just not as good as it was.

We used to have mousasi, weidman, rockhold, jacare, and yoel. Dont think Strickland and DDP can both be top 5 in that era.

All od those you mentioned are very beatable. I miss them and I would pick them clearly over guys like Vettori and Costa

 

[michi972]

Yeah I expected DDP to truck him but then again Sean’s a much better defensive fighter than Rob who blocks punches with his face. If anything it makes me think maybe the Whit win was overrated. Hopefully Paulo shows up this time so we can find out.

I think Whittaker is doing well as long as he doesn't get hit clean. The reason he looked as good as ever against Izzy 2, Canonier, Vettori is because they didn't land clean on him

 

[Harlekin]

 

[Humongo]

I’m not shitting on him. I just pointed out his recent record which is when he started fighting the top guys. Beating Izzy is incredibly impressive. Outside of that fight I haven’t really seen anything that makes me think he’s at the top of the division. If he now goes and beats Whittaker, Costa, Alex, Cannonier in a rematch, or even Khamzat etc then I’ll happily accept he’s elite.

how is beating izzy impressive? he's 4-3 in his last 7 fights

 

[michi972]

how is beating izzy impressive? he's 4-3 in his last 7 fights

One being at MW, one being against two division champ after competitive fight. He's still 2nd beat MW ever.

 

[Humongo]

One being at MW, one being against two division champ after competitive fight. He's still 2nd beat MW ever.

But he lost against 3-3 in his last 6 strickland. Not impressive.

 

[Yep]

I'm pretty bummed that they gave Dricus the decision. Like him or not, Sean brings personality to the division, and I dislike when guys in the top 5 end up passing the belt around to one another with no consistency. In 14 months, the MW strap has changed hands four times. Makes the title seem kind of worthless. Just who gets matched with who on what night.

It wasn’t a loser leaves town match. He will still be around.

 

[The_Renaissance]

It was a good title fight to be fair, two closely matched guys. Thought DDP edged it though.

 

[Squarechoke]

And what's your record in your last fights against top MWs?
Truth is you'd be 0-6, molly whopped within 30 seconds.

You don't get much more nonsensical than this. Especially since you won't find a single person anywhere, including you, that hasn't criticized something that they couldn't do themselves. Pretty much everyone do that all the time because the obvious fact is that you don't have to be able to do something in order to judge the quality of it. Case in point; almost none of the people training these fighters could do what the fighters are doing.

 

[Brolypr]

Strickland did good. But I'm DDP didnt go for more doubles. Seemed like the sensible solution for stricklands stiff boxing. yeah he tried a couple late in the fight, but it seemed right there from the start.

 

[XmarkX]

yeah , Strickland won against DDP , the judges screw him , i think most people agree in rounds 1, 4, and 5 ...1 and 5 for Strickland and rd 4 for DDP, ( judges also agreed on this) and there were 2 even rounds (2 and 3) and the judges gave both to DDP thats INSANE!!imo you can not give two rounds that were even to the same fighter , you should take that in consideration, and if its a champioship fight, if there is an even round, it should be ALWAYS scored for the belt holder, then if there is another one even you score it for the challeger, and keep that order for rounds that are even, pure logic

 

[Trabaho]

He is the case of becoming better once he became champ. Used to be boring, Izzy #1, Robert #2, then rest. Now Dricus and Sean are the top dogs. Division is open actually.

 

[JustforBROCK]

Hahaha. Sean Strickland will never fight for a title again.

 

[TriangleMonkey]

Sean is one of the most “slippery” fighters I have seen in the UFC

Almost Jon Jones level of slippery

Dude rarely gets caught with a flush punch, has a knack to not get hit whatsoever, and TDs don’t do much as he has good ability to stand back up

He has developed an outstanding mma boxing defense that opponents can’t penetrate. Although I don’t think it would work if he didn’t have the length he has in the weight class to pull it off

Also, he uses the front kicks like another jab, its one of the most underutilized kicks in mma imo

 

[RoñaCastroJr]

it's baffling to me how effective his arm-flailing parry defense is. i cannot argue with results whatsoever but i don't see how only pereira has been able to body/head combo his way to a KO. sean's chin is right there as his arms flail away, his head doesn't move much at all.

jabbing with him, going down to the body, then coming up to the head is a foolproof method of beating a philly shell/parry-heavy fighter. maidana did it to broner (and mayweather a bit), as well as dozens of others. jab the body, use it to set up the right hand upstairs. they can't block everything.

Maidana, huh ?
This guy knows his shit
Cheers

BTW just saw a recent Chino Maidana interview.. looks fat and on the coco.

 

[IneedSometop]

Sean is one of the most “slippery” fighters I have seen in the UFC

Almost Jon Jones level of slippery

Dude rarely gets caught with a flush punch, has a knack to not get hit whatsoever, and TDs don’t do much as he has good ability to stand back up

He has developed an outstanding mma boxing defense that opponents can’t penetrate. Although I don’t think it would work if he didn’t have the length he has in the weight class to pull it off

Also, he uses the front kicks like another jab, its one of the most underutilized kicks in mma imo

I agree he is slippery and is great at not catching anything flush, but he's not really abnormally long pretty much everyone in the top 15 has reach of roughly 75-76 inches with some outliers like Whittaker and Costa having T rex arms and Cannonier and Izzy having long arms. He really fights longer than he actually is because he's one of the only people to consistently use his jab effectively