UFC 293: Biggest Upset in Middleweight History

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The world of MMA has seen another interesting turn of events at UFC 293 in Qudos Bank Arena, Sydney. The main event of the night is being considered the upset of the year. 

Sean Strickland (28-5) has stunned MMA fans after beating the greatest middleweight in history, Israel Adesanya (24-3), in a five-round championship fight.


Sean and Israel
Sean and Israel during fight. Credit:(MMA Mania)

According to betting odds, Strickland was the underdog with a +450 and had a lower probability of winning. This became the biggest betting upset in the history of the sport.



The manner in which Sean achieved the title is more impressive. He dropped Adesanya with a right hand in the first round. He also defeated Adesanya with 137-94 total strikes.



The decision was declared, and all the judges scored the contest 49-46 for Strickland. In the post-fight interview, Sean said,

"Am I f---ing dreaming? Am I going to wake up? Somebody hit me. Literally, never in a million years did I think I was going to be here. Izzy is a bad mother f---er. You don't fight a guy with that many highlight-reel KOs. The majority of my friends, he's beat pretty easy. I was even kind of doubting myself at times."




This was Adesanya's first title defense in his second reign as the middleweight champion. He reclaimed his title, beating Alex Pereira in April.

Moreover, Adesanya made no excuses at the post-fight news conference for his loss against Sean. He said,

"I had a different plan for this, but life throws curveballs at you," Adesanya said. "Win or lose, I wasn't going to say much anyway, but right now, I lost tonight to the better man on the night, and I just want to be with people who care about me, my team, so I'm going to go do that."


Dana White has shown signs of a rematch between Sean and Adesanya for the title.

It will be interesting to see if Izzy fires back or if Sean is able to defend his title in their rematch.


Location: United States

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