UFC 293 results, highlights: Sean Strickland upsets Israel Adesanya with masterful performance, wins title

Few moments have shocked the MMA world like Saturday’s UFC 293 main event. Despite entering the cage as a massive underdog against one of the greatest champions in UFC history, Sean Strickland outworked Israel Adesanya to become UFC middleweight champion with a unanimous decision win.

The fight played out in a strange way, with Adesanya, an accomplished kickboxer, being completely thrown off and ineffective because of Strickland’s constant pressure on the feet. Despite the fight never hitting the ground, Strickland was able to easily coast to victory by simply outworking Adesanya and keeping the champion’s back to the cage.

Adesanya entered the fight as a -650 favorite, but Strickland never seemed uncomfortable from the opening bell, forcing the action and using simple strikes to outwork an ineffective Adesanya. Strickland even came close to stopping the fight with a big flurry in Round 1 that badly hurt Adesanya.

Adesanya appeared to have gathered himself at the start of Round 2 and had his most effective five minutes of the fight, though much of that success seemed to come because Strickland’s own offensive output decreased.

There was never a moment across the fight where it felt as though Adesanya was in control. Despite being an accomplished kickboxer, Adesanya appeared lost because of Strickland’s simple pressure-based approach to the fight. Rather than utilize his stronger and more technical striking tools, Adesanya circled around the outside of the cage, rarely planting his feet to let loose with any meaningful offense.

Adesanya’s lack of offense paired with Strickland’s constant forward movement meant that after the conclusion of five rounds, all three official scorecards read 49-46 in Strickland’s favor, crowning a new — and unexpected — UFC middleweight champion.

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“You guys know, Izzy is a bad motherf—er, guys,” Strickland said after his historic win. “He’s beaten the majority of my friends pretty easily. I was doubting myself at times but the fans in Australia, you motivated me. … In the fourth round, when I heard you yelling, it motivated me, guys.”

The fight was the first defense for Adesanya in his second stint as middleweight champion. After suffering a knockout loss to Alex Pereira in late 2022, he came back to score his own knockout earlier this year and regain the championship.

The plan was for Adesanya to defend the belt against Dricus Du Plessis, playing on an ugly rivalry between the two over whether Nigerian-born Adesanya or South African-born Du Plessis was “more African.” When Du Plessis was unable to accept a fight at UFC 293, Strickland got the call, with nearly everyone in the MMA game writing him off as having no chance of beating a technical assassin like Adesanya.

Instead, Strickland shocked the world and did serious damage to Adesanya’s place as an all-time great in the sport’s history.

“I had a different plan for this but again life throws curveballs at you,” Adesanya said at the post-fight press conference. “Win or lose, I wasn’t going to say much anyway but right now, I lost tonight to the better man on the night. I just want to go and be with people who care about me — my team and they’re waiting for me so I’m going to do that.

“But I will leave you in the capable hands of a man who is much smarter than me, I’ll admit this on worldwide national media, I’ll leave you with Eugene Bareman. He’ll handle this for the first time. I want to go chill, have some breakfast, build my family and till next time.”

Elsewhere on the card, Alexander Volkov scored a second-round submission of hometown favorite Tai Tuivasa with an ezekiel choke. The former Bellator heavyweight champ picked apart the Aussie fighter on the feet before dropping him and securing full mount, where he then smothered Tuivasa for the unique submission. Plus, both Justin Tafa and Tyson Pedro were able to send the hometown fans happy with first-round knockouts in brutal fashion. 

CBS Sports was with you the entire way on Saturday bringing you all the results and highlights from the UFC 293 below.