successfully defended her bantamweight title at UFC 289 but immediately retired, leaving two women's titles vacant. Sterling retained his belt at UFC 288, but his time as champ was counting down. And another title changed hands at UFC 287 back in April, when Adesanya regained championship status -- which soon would be grabbed away from him again.
Now, the middleweight division has a journeyman fighter wearing its crown. Strickland was 2-2 in his four most recent fights coming into this night. But there's no begrudging him his accomplishment. He traveled across the world to Adesanya's home region and won the belt fair and square. And he was one of the heaviest underdogs ever to capture UFC gold.
This fight, this result, left us with questions. Give Strickland credit. I'm not trying to take anything away from him. But I think we all would agree that UFC 293 was a flat performance by Adesanya -- and that begs the question, 'Why?' The pressure of Sean Strickland was too much for Israel Adesanya during the middleweight title fight at UFC 293. If the title rematch doesn't happen for one reason or another -- and with White willing to talk about it on the night of the fight, that doesn't seem likely -- then Dricus du Plessis is the first name to enter the conversation.
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UFC 293: Israel Adesanya loses middleweight title in stunning upset vs. Sean StricklandSean Strickland dropped and nearly finished Israel Adesanya late in the first round of their middleweight title fight Sunday in Sydney, Australia, in the main event of UFC 293.
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