Dan Hardy thinks Israel Adesanya could have won at UFC 293 had he been able to expose the obvious holes in Sean Strickland’s game.
Strickland pressured Adesanya and ‘The Last Stylebender’ just couldn’t get going offensively and was pieced up to a one-sided decision loss to lose his middleweight title.
In the fight, Israel Adesanya failed to do much at all, and after rewatching the fight, Dan Hardy thinks it was a missed opportunity for the Kiwi. With that, he believes if they do fight again, Adesanya would defeat him as the pressure style isn’t one that can work all the time.
Hardy explains the holes in Strickland’s game
“Look, I’m not gonna recommend that fighters watch him to learn something from his style,” Hardy said on hisYouTube channel (h/t MMANews). “I still do think his style is untidy and I still think there are lots of holes in it Izzy should’ve capitalized on… Just because it’s working, doesn’t mean it’s perfect. Something that’s working can still have issues with it. It can still be made better. There are definitely lots of things about Sean’s style that can be improved on.
“I think there are a lot of reasons why we’re here in this alternate parallel universe where Sean Strickland is the best middleweight on the planet,” Hardy continued. “Pressure is a thing, intention is a thing, confidence in range and being present is a thing… I still feel like if they fought 10 times, Izzy would probably win eight of them… There’s so many things Sean Strickland has just disregarded about his game, about MMA… What I like about him is he’s just kind of there, in the moment.”
After the loss, Israel Adesanya and his team have already called for a rematch with Sean Strickland. UFC president Dana White has also expressed interest in an immediate rematch.
If the rematch is next, perhaps Adesanya will use Hardy’s information to help him reclaim his title against Strickland.
