Israel Adesanya admits how change of UFC 293 opponent may have thrown him off his game

Israel Adesanya faced Sean Strickland in the main event of UFC 293. The bout was the first title defense of his second reign as the middleweight champion. What was meant to be a showcase close to home soil turned out to be a nightmare, as he was on the wrong end of the greatest upset in middleweight history.

And a nightmare is exactly how 'The Last Stylebender' described his experience fighting Strickland, as he has uploaded a video to his official YouTube channel, FREESTYLEBENDER, to offer his thoughts on his loss. Adesanya was surprisingly classy, crediting Strickland's skills as a factor in his loss.

However, as is common with fighters at the highest level, he didn't fully credit his defeat to Strickland simply being a better mixed martial artist or a poor stylistic matchup. According to Adesanya, Dricus du Plessis withdrawing from the fight may have contributed to his loss. He said:

"Someone said something to me. I think it was AB. AB said as soon as the opponent switched, he said like almost instantly, it was like, with Dricus I went like 'I wanna f*cking kill this dude.' I had this thing about me. So when the opponent switched, he just noticed, and I was like okay, I'm gonna whoop this dude. Like, going from 'I wanna murder this motherf*cker, I'm gonna f*cking kill this guy' to 'oh yeah, I'm gonna whoop this dude.' So that's something AB just happened to mention."

It seems then that Adesanya is implying that having to refocus on Strickland instead of du Plessis, with whom he has an extremely personal feud, negatively affected his performance.

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Why was Israel Adesanya's loss to Sean Strickland considered such a massive upset?

In the aftermath of his loss to Sean Strickland, Israel Adesanya has had to stomach the idea that he was subject to the greatest upset in middleweight history, and arguably the biggest-ever upset in the UFC as a whole.

But why is that? Why is this defeat, in particular, so shocking?

First, Strickland was a late-notice replacement for Adesanya's original opponent, Dricus du Plessis. 'Tarzan' had barely a month to prepare for the fight, spending most of his training camp cutting weight instead of focusing mostly on game-planning and sparring. Furthermore, his weight cut was exceedingly brutal.

Adesanya is also regarded as one of the greatest strikers in UFC history, with exceptional speed and deceptive power. His only kryptonite is his grappling. But Strickland was no wrestler. He was just a boxer with cardio and no other outstanding physical attributes.

And above all else, he was the biggest betting underdog in middleweight history, but he still won.