How Sean Strickland

~ Killed the King ~

The most memorable upsets in mixed martial arts come in two varieties. There are the shocking knockouts or submissions that sneak up on the heavy favourite. Perhaps they are down to a lack of preparation or underestimating the opponent, or turn on one trick punch or set up. Then there are upsets of the other kind: the systematic dismantling. This writer would never attempt to convince his readers that he had Sean Strickland picked for anything but an easy night of work for Israel Adesanya, but the American jab merchant matched up with Adesanya in just the right ways to author one of the great upsets in this sport’s history.

It was not pretty, and it wasn’t action packed, but Sean Strickland was able to enact that one principle that we have always returned to in the Killing the King series. He did not have to be quicker than Israel Adesanya or stronger or more powerful, he just had to gum up the works of the Adesanya machine. All he had to do was make Adesanya’s “A game” hard to operate, and drag Adesanya down to his level.

The chatter immediately before the fight centred on Strickland appearing nervous, but as the fight progressed it revealed that Strickland wasn’t overawed by the moment: he was treating his title shot with the seriousness it demanded. From the first front kick Adesanya threw, Strickland parried the shot across his body with his left hand and kept his right hand—so often wildly reaching for the opponent—up to guard against the possibility of the front kick becoming a question mark kick.  

While he still reached for punches and overcommitted to parries, Strickland was seldom found out of position when an Adesanya kick came in. Adesanya’s general game across kickboxing and MMA has been to kick and circle out, shellacking the opponent from long range. Strickland’s answer was to pick off or check the kicks and walk Adesanya down.

Strickland’s style is somewhat wacky and of his own, but his victory here came down to that old principle of controlling the centreline. In the punching exchanges, Adesanya’s best shots are longer, straighter or arcing shots, rather than short hooking ones. Strickland picked off his jabs, crosses and the odd overhand, and shot back with his own less committed one-twos. Adesanya’s kicking game was defused by Strickland’s constant use of teeps and raising of knees to check. A raised knee can be  a check but it can also be a faked teep, so Strickland would perform a march, raising each knee alternately, and force Adesanya to give ground towards the fence.

Fig. 1

It is no exaggeration to say that Strickland’s use of the teep was one of the best I have seen in MMA. There are long, powerful front kicks out there, but the teep as an anti-kicking weapon is still a mystery to most in MMA.

Fig. 2

Fig. 3

Strickland’s performance conjured to mind the image of Joe Schilling. Schilling is a kickboxer who fight fans have reimagined as not that good, and one who “got lucky” when he did win big fights. A lot of Schilling’s game was having the heart of a lion, poking with little teeps off both legs, and stepping in with punches when he had nudged his opponent off balance. More powerful kickers and punchers were both awkwardly moved around the ring by him, and distracted by his high kneed marching before he stepped in with a short one-two that had them reeling.  

Strickland’s high knees carried him inside Adesanya’s round kicks, but also deflected or stifled front kicks and body punches. A backhanded jab off a checked kick was often among the better connections of the fight.

Fig. 4

Despite the commentary team’s focus on boxing, the most punishing connections of the fight came when Adesanya punched, and Strickland poked the ball of his foot into Adesanya’s belly. Only occasionally did Strickland follow up on these intercepting counters with punches, but they clearly took their toll on Adesanya.

Fig. 5

Figure 6 shows one of the few times Strickland was able to force his advantage off an intercepting push kick. In this instance he follows with a jab, a right hook, and a left hook, running Adesanya back to the fence to continue the assault.

Fig. 6

Israel Adesanya’s ringcraft is generally very good: when he finds himself near the fence he fakes, moves his head, direction changes, and escapes to the side where he faces the least resistance. But he was forced to do this dozens of times in this fight, while Strickland meandered across to meet him. Strickland faces a great deal of criticism for his stance and footwork—and I have been among those voices—but watching him saunter up to Adesanya and expend almost no effort as Adesanya side stepped and darted around the cage I came to understand the method of this madness. If you need some old bushido to back it up, Musashi famously said that footwork should be no more than “ferrying you across” the battlefield. No tricks, no deception, just the lowest effort method of locomotion you have in your arsenal.  

Adesanya’s ringcraft is often paired with framing, and we have touched on this numerous times before. Extended arm frames allow a fighter to push off his opponent and keep them at arm’s length, but also allow the framing fighter to get down behind his shoulders. One famous example of Adesanya getting caught came when Kelvin Gastelum sort of arm dragged him as he framed, and charged in swinging. Strickland’s team likely picked up on this because Strickland had a completely original look for Adesanya when he tried to frame.

Strickland would clap both hand around Adesanya’s extended wrist, grab hold, and pound in a front kick knowing Adesanya was held in place. It was surreal to watch and looked as though it had been pulled from the pages of a 1930s karate textbook, where the opponent just stands still as you apply a two handed wrist lock and kick him at the same time. It was one thing to attempt this when Adesanya was trying to frame off Strickland’s chest or face, but Strickland also went two-hands-on-one when Adesanya attempted to handfight.

Figure 7 shows Adesanya in a southpaw stance, seizing Strickland’s lead wrist (a). This is a bad spot for Strickland so he draws his hand back into his chest to free it (b), then snaps both hands out to catch Adesanya’s hand and glove (c). A front kick follows immediately (d). Strickland is committing both hands to an offensive action on one side of Adesanya’s body, in a shootout where Adesanya is supposed to be trying to line up his left straight. Whether this is brave or reckless I shall leave up to the reader.

Fig. 7

Figure 8 shows one of the occasions Strickland pushed his advantage off this technique. Oddly enough, this was in the first round. Scoring a right front kick off the double wrist grab, Strickland steps into a southpaw stance with a right jab. The front kick into shifting jab was a staple of the Machida boys and the fighter’s falling weight often turns the the jab into something stiffer than just a jab.

Fig. 8

Outside of the footwork battle, relatively little “happened” in this fight. The meaningful connections were few, the grappling was non-existent, and spare a knockdown along the fence in the first round no one was really hurt. The knockdown came from the standard Strickland one-two, happening to connect as Adesanya attempted to stand his ground and commit to a left hook. The left hook has never been one of Adesanya’s best punches and he was caught in a similar situation by Pereira in their first UFC title fight.

Adesanya looked to exploit Strickland’s reaching with the left hook several times in this bout, just as Alex Pereira had, but found himself falling short. Much of Strickland’s improved defence came down to distancing. While he pressed forward throughout, he did so with his feet narrow so that he was always ready to a) pick up his lead leg and push kick, and b) take a step back to extend his stance and let Adesanya fall short.

Strickland landed occasional good punches along the fence and perhaps his best read came in the last minute of the fight, as he flicked a jab only to throw a right straight to ninety degrees as he perfectly read Adesanya’s side step.

Fig. 9

There were elements of this match up that we perhaps should have seen coming. Strickland’s weird handfighting and jabbing wins him straight hitting exchanges, and Adesanya is both a straight hitter and a pot-shotter: he seldom throws in combinations beyond a one-two. Strickland is certainly due his credit, not just as a better fighter than he appeared, but especially for this fight in which he clearly listened to his long-suffering coaches and shored up some of the holes that have been out there to exploit for a while.