I dunno. I'm not so surprised Strickland won. I felt he was capable of winning, especially if he was to take izzy to the ground. What im surprised at is how easily he made it seem.
He made it seem so easy that I started to question if something was wrong with Izzy. Pretty much all Sean did was push forward and keep izzy backing up. He does that for every opponent but either something was wrong with izzy or that was his kryptonite.
I spent the rest of the night thinking there's no way that could have been the only fight izzy had someone constantly pushing toward him, but I can't think of any where it was CONSTANT like that. There have been plenty that would give pressure, but they always have moments where they stand still and trade off with izzy or they're both side stepping in the center. In either situation, izzy eventually finds his distance and starts faking them out trying to get an opening and strikes. I think with Strickland constantly moving forward keeping izzy on his heels he couldn't ever find that distance.
Despite as goofy as he looks, Strickland has a pretty solid defense too. It'll be interesting to see if any info comes out of adesanya and if anything was going on. Also have to keep in mind that he got ROCKED in that first round when he was still "feeling it out" and he took a bunch of hits to the head right after. Dude probably wasn't even 70% good after that. Glad the ref didn't call off the fight, but surprised it didn't happen. Lots of fights have gotten called way earlier than that.
