MMA Fighting - Roundtable: Is Sean Strickland’s Stunner Over Israel Adesanya The Biggest Upset Ever?

Episode Date: September 12, 2023

Sean Strickland is the UFC middleweight champion. Yes, with a few days to process it, we can officially confirm: That actually happened. But where does Strickland's UFC 293 stunner over Israel Adesanya sit in the pantheon of all-time great UFC upsets? MMA Fighting's Shaun Al-Shatti, Alexander K. Lee, Jed Meshew, and Steven Marrocco look back at 30 years of chaos to debate where Strickland's coronation ranks within the context of UFC history. Follow Shaun Al-Shatti @ShaunAlShatti Follow Alexander K. Lee @AlexanderKLee Follow Jed Meshew @JedKMeshew Follow Steven Marrocco @MMAFightingSM Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for this show comes from the Audible original, The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudullian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible Original Blockbuster, The Downloaded.

It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, what are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The downloaded two, Ghosts in the Machine,

available now, only from Audible. Podcast Network. Hope you're all out there. Having a nice little start to your week. You already know, my name is Sean O'Shti, and we've got the whole gang here. Yeah.

Jed Mishu, even a little royal double dose, the Prince of Positivity, Alexander K. Lee, and the Prince of Darkness. Stephen Morocco. And y'all, we are here on this morning to talk upsets. Because as we wake up on Tuesday, I swear to God, somehow, some way, this is true. Sean Strickland is still sitting right here in front us as the UFC middleweight champion of the world.

This man, this man who was a reluctant plan B for the UFC, the guy who the UFC had to be convinced to even give this shot, who entered 2023, losing two street, one of which he got completely colded in, and who 10 weeks ago was fighting in a very, very desolate UFC Apex against a very, very unranked man who still actually doesn't have his own Wikipedia page. Y'all, that guy is now the king of the world.

He is our number one middleweight, and he's probably like a top 10 star in MMA in terms of popularity. If you look at all the views that he's getting, he's probably potentially a fight of the year for 2023, too. How can we even begin to put this into context? I have no idea. But we're going to try.

fellas, a couple days removed from all of this chaos, Sean Strickland, UFC middleweight champion. Is this sounding any more natural than it did on Saturday night? Are we still doing this? Are we still doing MMA? Is MMA still happening, Sheen? I was told, I was told, we wrote a lot of articles before UFC 293, and I was told if this happens, it's over.

Like we're just, it's over. No more talking with MMA. MMA makes no sense. there's definitely no pretending that any of us are experts and have any idea what we're talking about when it comes to M.A. Because Sean Strickland just beat Israel and Disney. And didn't just beat them. I mean, we're talking five round, no questions, no flukes.

You heard them. You know, struck them for the majority of 25 minutes. It's very real. And I think the first thing I said when we talked to the next day, Shaheen, was, oh, by the way, Sean Strickland is the UFC middleweight champion. And we were just both like, it doesn't look right. It doesn't look right. but it's deserved and it is reality.

Yeah. No, I mean, yeah. How do we follow that? Wrap it up. It's over. It's here. This is the world we're in. It's happening.

And, you know, we're in it for as long as it lasts because I think as as much as we all agree that this was a pretty seismic event, extremely unexpected, top five upset. We're probably going to get to that in a minute. but I think we would all also be on the same page that this is not going to be a long era given the matchups that are out there. Who knows at this point, right? You know, maybe this past Saturday proved, you know, that we know nothing and it's going to be

as long as Sean Strickland wants it to be. Here's what we do know. Regardless of what happens in the future, the past or present, the Sean Strickland era is forever because for the rest of our lives, we will know the feeling of Sean Strickland being the UFC middleweight champion. He owns it now forever. This is the only timeline we live in. And in this one, Sean Brighan Strickland is the champion.

Yeah, I've said this and I think I've written it already that it's historical. Now, when you put when you think of when you look at the UFC middleweight title lineage, you have Anderson Silva, you have Israel Disney. You have Sean Strickland. They are in there. I'm not saying they're equal, but they're in there. Nothing can separate Strickland from those names on that list anymore. Aren't they equal?

They're all champions. There's not like a super champion title to have. It's just champion. And I think we can all agree, you know, that fighters get better. There's King Henry the 5th and King, Henry the 8th. They're all both kings. And, you know, fighters get better and better with every generation. So, I mean, you know, theoretically,

can't believe we're doing this. My favorite thing that I did in the aftermath of this is just a very quick list of middleweights who haven't won the UFC title. And it's really funny to be like, Yo-Ramero, Gagard Musassi, never UFC champions. Dan Anderson, never a UFC champion. Sean Strickland, yeah, boy. And that's the thing. This could end tomorrow and for the rest of Sean Strickland's life.

Every article written about him will say former UFC middleweight champion. And that's just the reality of the situation. It's a crazy world we live in. So I wanted to do this because we have on this podcast right now. I think we have more than three combined decades of experience within this sport, maybe even four. I'm not sure where it totals out just here on this podcast alone. So I didn't want this to just be some reactionary thing,

which is why we waited a couple days. I feel like we all have a good and healthy understanding of MMA history, of UFC history. And so when we try to put this into context, what we saw last Saturday night. Whether this is the biggest upset of all time or where it ranks among the biggest upsets of all time, I think we can all of sound mind agree.

It's not the biggest upset of all time, right? Like that will forever be Matt Sarah versus GSP. That's the automatic number one. As wild as this is, this ain't that, this ain't this genuine journeyman grappler winning a title shot on a dumb reality show than just colding one of the greatest fighters of all time

in three minutes and then never having a feat like that ever again. Like that's not, to me, that is still number one. Before we even get going, does anyone disagree? Is there an argument? Is there a case for this topping that? I don't think there's a reasonable one. No, but I won't make it. I don't think there's a reasonable one.

Here is what I will say, and this will lead us into the conversation, I guess. And it may tip my hand in where I, and some thoughts I'm going to put. This is a very dumb and bad, you know, takery on. my part, so sorry for that. Everything exists in context, and the GSP Sarah upset still looks insane at, you know, this many years after the fact. It's still they read, because they fought and when they fought

again, it was like, oh, that's still insane. This fight, we don't know what this upset means except for in this exact moment, and it's very big in this moment. Do not mistake that at all, but there is a world, There are several worlds where in a year, five years from now, this upset is considerably more impressive or considerably less impressive, depending how things shake out. Yeah, I've been thinking about Israel Adasandia's place in the middleweight, in the pantheon of middleweights all time. And I don't know if you guys have been having similar thoughts about. Oh, I have.

I'm excited for your thoughts. Well, no. It makes you revisit things, right? People can't see this. You guys are salivating right now to talk about it. Well, man, if you let Sean Strickland become the champion, you're, you can't be good. No, no, no, no. I think that's, that's, I don't think we can frame it in that way. Yeah. That's, and that's my, that's my main, that's the thing that I'm thinking through, because is it just that middleweights are better now than they were in Anderson Silva's reign? Would Anderson Silva's reign have been as long in today's UFC middleweight division?

You can't ask Shaheen that? He can't bring an objective stance to this one. That's true. That's true. I can't be objected with that. It's tough because, like you said, Jed, we're in the moment right now, right? Like, if you, some of these things look different with when you sort of know the afterwards. And I was thinking about this.

What makes an all-time upset? like what makes these things feel more important or more significant than certain others and to me i was able to come together with like five elements i think that sort of brings together what makes an all-time upset one the pre-fight perception right the narratives before the fight the narratives leading into the event what people are saying and certainly there were a lot of them for this one two the odds the betting odds just straight up betting odds how how vagus and the bookmakers see things three whether there's some sort of unique circumstances that play into it. Think Michael Bisping accepting the fight on short notice,

even Sean Strickland, sort of being this very deep plan B for the UFC and then blowing things up, that sort of thing. There's something unique that you can wrap around this. And then the other two would be the way in which the fight actually played out because I think there's a very big distinguishing difference between going in there and doing a Matt Sarah of, hey, this is a flash knockout, this is very much something you can call a fluke.

or doing the Sean Strickland of, yeah, we just saw 25 minutes and this man broke this man, and it was thorough and it was dominant. And I think a lot of us feel it would probably be the same if you do it again. And then the final piece to this, and that's the one we don't have for this, is how these two fighters fared afterwards, right? And to me, that's what, I don't want to keep revisiting it, but that's what makes the GSP, Sarah, thing, so remarkable, which is we saw what happened afterwards to both those guys.

Matt, Sarah, more or less, retired pretty quickly afterwards, after because he lost a couple more times and that was it and george st pierre went on to be if not the greatest fighter of all time the second greatest fighter of all time he's he's in that goat conversation forever so that's also he mushed sarah in the rematch just pushed him and that colors the way that you look at the sort of these upsets because i think when you when you throw out the big upsets there's a lot of similar um examples that pop up right and let's and let's keep this only ufc because i think things get a lot weirder if you open this up to like Salkajoo and Fador for Doom and some of the pride stuff and just other things out there.

I have a whole list of Bellator upsets in front of Asia. What do you do? All these Division I won champions that Belator signed that lost in like third pro. I was in the building for one of the biggest upsets of all time when Bubba Jenkins lost to Leroux Burley. There we go. That huge upset. Like 20 to 1 or something like that. So for our purposes, let's keep it strictly UFC.

And I feel like there's a few fights that always get mentioned in this same. breath in this conversation, right? Nunes Pena, Bisbing Rockhold, Holly Home, Ronda Rousey, Hennon, Burrow, T.J. Dillashah, and maybe even Diaz-McGregor, if you're feeling frosty and you want to throw that in there. A few of those don't feel like they really relate, though, right?

Like the Holly Home, Rhonda Rousey one, when people call that an all-time upset, I don't know that I necessarily agree because that was more, it felt in the moment like this was very real. If you sort of knew the game, you knew who Holly was, her background. And also, just you look at that,

the aspect of how those fighters fared afterwards. And it's like, obviously, Holly would beat Ronda. To me, that doesn't feel like an all-time upset. Would you guys agree? So I'm going to quibble. I'm going to push back on that one. I think that we, and I wrote about this a little bit today and a separate topic that kind of interrelates here,

I think we underrate that in the MMA media as an upset because of the things that you are saying. because we are all operating under the assumption. A shared one. I'm with you. I think that Holly Home probably just does the same thing to Ron if they fought. We are all operating under the assumption that that is the case. And because of that, that is less of an upset than it is a,

we just mis-evaluated the perspective coming in. Where the truth is, actually, maybe Rhonda just had a bad night because it's not like Holly Home went on to be this dominant fighter. She just has hung around being very good for a long time. And if they had rematch and Ronda goes out there and just dumps her and arm bars are in round one, then I think we would look back at it. So that's sort of where I'm out on the context thing is like I think we underrate that as a historical upset just because of the perceived reality after the fact. And that's not necessarily fair to to Hollyholm or her upset. It's number two on the tapology list.

I don't know if that is that underrating. I mean, that's that's pretty high up there. I didn't realize it was that high on thing. Yeah, but that's like user generated, right? Like, is that just an amalgamation. That is a upset that I think it's not meaningless, right? It's much larger. No, yeah, that's fair.

Yeah, it's a much larger public viewing upset than it is for, you know, the MMA media space. So I think most people write that one off entirely. And that was reflected in the odds as well, right? Like, we look at the odds and I was what I'm going by topology. It certainly has the highest odds of anything we mentioned. Yeah, minus 1,400. And that is, that is a definition of public, right? I mean, I don't know if it opened at that, but I guarantee lots of money came in on

when that fight was announced. Okay, let me find that for you. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you can find the chart. I would imagine it moved, right? She probably opened minus 12. I think it also closed closer than that, I thought. Yeah, it moved up way and it moved out. It moved out the shove at the way ends.

Yeah, it has a lot to do with, again, just that, that, you know, this is a whole other podcast, but that Rousey, which I think we already did. The fame of Rousey, the mystique of Rousey pushed that line and pushed the expectations to a somewhat unreasonable level. Plus one. Yeah, somewhat to Jet's point as well. I think people forget also how kind of uninspiring home looked in her first two UFC fights.

She just was not... Has looked since. Has looked since. She was just not a compelling challenge for the time. But it is true. It's documented. There are prediction pieces.

There are probably, if you dig through, you know, YouTube archives, a lot of pundits picking home as a very live dog for the reasons that, you know, we saw play out. And I do think if they fight 20 times, Hollywood's that fight 19 times. Like, it's just a bad matchup. Yeah.

Yeah. Maybe. I'm honestly not sure because I also saw like, we saw how that fight and we don't need to relitigate the fight. Also, one fight later, I saw Hollyholm look completely lost on the ground against Misha Tate. So if Rhonda can get one takedown, that might be all that is needed. But she did take her down in the, didn't she take her down in the fight?

I remember her running her face onto jabs. We all remember that. She actually did get a take down. I think there was a take down in a quick scramble. And then they were like, oh, this was like, that's it. And then, yeah, I think before home got any serious troubles, you match to get out. Either way, though, like, I don't want us to get derailed too hard because just looking back at all of this and all the fights that we've mentioned, it feels to me like there are a few that sort of fit all of maybe the different parameters that we've lined out here. And that would be obviously Sarah GSP, number one.

We don't need to keep mentioning it. But then Nudus Pena, Bisbing, Rockhold, and maybe Barrow-Dilishaw, if you want to throw that in there, the rest. just don't feel like they're at that same level. Sean Strickland was what, seven to one, five to one, something like that? Five to one, yeah. When we did our pre-fight prediction piece of, or not prediction piece, but roundtable piece of like, would this be the greatest upset of all time? I wrote that, I thought it would be top ten if it happened.

But a lot of that was just because you didn't assume that the way in which this played out would be the way in which it played out, right? I assumed it would be a wrestle fest or it would be a flash knockout. I just can't get over a couple days later. The way in which it played out was a 25-minute striking clinic domination. To me, this is top three, man. Like, I think that's where I finally landed with it. On Saturday night, as I was writing my post-flight column, I think I called it top five.

I think I've put it in top three at this point. This feels, other than GSP Sarah and Nunes Pena, I don't know that I could think of a more surprising outcome for me, just in the way all of it. of the factors combined the way in which it played up so uh i have it at number two overall and i think that that what you said right there is pretty key to part of this in that it's not just that the upset occurred it is the manner in which it happened and as i tried to piece this all together um i think it's the least probable thing i have ever seen in a cage fight other than matt sarah renowned

bjj artist with zero knockouts to his name knocking out george st pierre um i i i'd nothing is ever going to beat that. I just honestly can't find a world. Something's going to beat that. The fact that he went in there, if he had won, if Israel had stepped on a banana peel, you know, rolled his ankle, okay. The fact that he gave him a boxing lesson for 25 minutes,

elevates this to number two on the list for me, with the major, major caveat that that could entirely change in a year. If Sean Strickland just leveled up because he's still only 32, He's working with one of the best coaches in camps in the sport. And legitimately, I went back and rewatch the fight. It's his best performance. It's a little dumb, obviously. But like a year ago, he was getting led around the cage by the nose by Alex Pereira

and walking into punches. And Israel Adisina, who has better footwork than Alex Pereira, frankly, could not escape him. He is cutting the cage magnificently, that entire fight, never overextending and getting himself out of position. He is just in Izzy's face, crowding him and taking everything away. It is a sensational performance from him. And it is possible that Izzy had an off night. After he watching it, I am far less likely to believe that this is he having a bad night and more likely to believe Sean Shicken's super prepared and better than we all thought. And that working with his camp, he's improved and he had a great fight. And maybe he's not going to be a long reigning

champion. I would not bet on that, but I could absolutely see him winning a rematch the same way and maybe even putting one or two title defenses together. And if that happens and we look back on this, it's less of an upset as time goes by. It's more of a, oh, we weren't really aware of who Sean Strickland was going to become in the same way that Hafeldos Anjos was just sort of an also round who was talented and then was like, actually, I'm Loki one of the best lightweights ever. It just all came together a little later. And by the same token, and to end my part here,

I think there's really high likelihood, and I said this in the post show, Izzy's over the hill, and we're about to find out in the next year or two. He's 34, but he has been fighting professionally for 13 years. It's around the time you start to see the drop off. He has, I did the math, 113 professional fights

across kickboxing, boxing, and MMA. I don't know if anyone knows anything about numbers. 113 is a shit. load of fights. I think that's the technical term, shitload, and that's not including camp and training. That is just an infinite amount of mileage on the body. What I saw on rewatch makes me really think that Izzy has passed his prime now. And so over the next year, I think it's pretty likely that we see Sean Strickland's good and getting better and Izzy is past his best and declining. And so in five years, I think this probably goes down the list. But if they both

retired tomorrow, this is number two for me, and it's going to stay there. I'm still struggling to put it in my top three, but that is a super compelling argument. I guess I'm still of that camp where, like, I need to see how it ages, but since, you know, we can't, you know, it doesn't necessarily not an option right now. We have to evaluate it for what it is. Definitely the way it played out was shocking in real time. I will not be forgetting anytime soon how I felt watching that fight because you, you, you, there were some people who had an inkling

of how it might go and I think I was in the line with like winning a decision. I think I saw the Julianna Pena style where let's say he just goes crazy, utilizes a strong chain, great cardio and just you know, fights his way through the best that is he has to throw

and you know breaks him down and runs away within the last three rounds and that's what I thought maybe he takes a knockdown even the first two rounds but he did not get knocked down he barely got touched he did not have to go balls to the wall, Berserker,

it was measured, it was controlled, he looked like the better fighter. I think I said this on onto the next one that if you had not, if you did not know anything about their past, anything about either of these guys, you would have rightfully thought

that Strickland was the champion coming in and that Izzy was like this overmatched challenger. What is he in there? That's how crazy that performance is. So I understand the desire to put in the top two, but I think somewhere in the top three. But for me, of course, Sarah, GSP, blah, blah, blah. I can't quite put it over Bissping Rockhold either

and can't quite put it over Pena Nunes, though it's very close. It's very close to Pena Nunes. The Bissing Rockhold one, I just have to, I love talking about the circumstances fight because I gave Bisping no chance. I would say even less of a chance,

because I don't know what the, I wasn't, maybe I wasn't working in M.A. at the time, I certainly wasn't with M.A fighting. I'm not sure if the team then did a lot of, here's how Bisping can win. Oh my gosh, how crazy would it be if Bisping won. I have feeling it was so, remote, it wasn't even worth writing about, as opposed to now, with the Strickland stuff,

people can go again, look at M-Afighting.com, our fightweek coverage, our pre-fight coverage. A lot of it is, oh, my God, what if this happens? It's just going to happen. How's this going to happen? So we've got to braced ourselves. And when it finally happened, I was just like, blown us, blown away as anyone, but I was like, man, what we'd envision some weird scenario where this can happen, just not exactly how it did.

But with something like Biscamating Rockhold, we'd seen them fight. Rockhold annihilated him. Bisping's not a knockout. He's not a one-shot knockout artist. He's a guy who's a lot of knockouts, TKOs, you know, via strikes. But for him to just cold, rockhold like that was insane. With one eye. With one eye.

Now we know. That's talking about being built, look back at fights in context with one eye. So that was always going to be up there for me. I still can't believe it. Sometimes I've watched replays that fight and I'm like, oh, Rockhold wins this one too, right? Like in my mind, I was like, yeah, rock hole's clearly going to beat him. Because we've seen it. We know what it looks to see Rockhold beat Bisping.

And then the drop off, I guess, has made it not as great. You know, Bissing at least managed to defend the title. Like, times Rockhold just never looked anywhere near as good as he has in that, the Weidman fight. Also, nobody apparently had ever thrown a single left hook at Luke Rockhold prior to Michael Bisbee. How could he know? Because from that moment forward, everyone did.

And he always got knocked out by them. They found, you know, Mispin, he found he broke the code. Left hook. That's all it took. Pena Nunes. A thousand techniques in MMA, and that's the one you choose. Sometimes the left hook is the most overlooked of all the techniques. Well, that's the jab.

It's the basics, man, we shot with Sean. That's exactly what it is, you know. It's so clear. Sean Strickland just won using exclusively a one-two and a push game. And it was fine. He heard him with the one-two. That was so great. And a modified Philly Shell.

When Randy beat Chuck and it was like, holy shit, you straight punches. It was incredible. Great. How's he doing this? Pena Nunes, it gets the benefit of, you know, we view Nunes the greatest woman's fighter of all time. She defended two titles.

You know, we can now sort of think about, well, how strong are those two divisions really? But that's not Pena's problem. That's not Nune's a problem. Statistically, it looks like a great upset. It looks like a great upset in the moment. Nobody, nobody, Jed, that I know of, predicted that Pena would win.

Surely I would have heard about it by now if someone had predicted a Pena victory, but I've never heard anyone mention that. So, Shaheen, I'd like you to input the audio. Oh, is this an insert. Just right here. Prediction.

I agree, though. Penya for me still rises above this because it has the same element of the Matt Sarah thing where like to beat a goat, like an actual goat in that way, like a stoppage, like a very decisive way like that's, I don't know,

that to me is like a different level of this. Yeah. And Nunes dominating the rematch only makes the upset even better, right? it only actually increases the power of the upset in a way, right? Can I make two arguments against me? Of course. Very quickly.

The first is it's hard for you to call something the biggest upset when you personally predicted it because then it's not an upset. Oh, my God. You just couldn't help yourself. You just couldn't help. I simply could not. And the second one is I think the rematch, while I totally get the arguments there, I watched the rematch and that whole rematch long, even when Amanda was dribbling her skull

off the canvas, I was like, Man, there's still really a world where she just gasses herself out beating the brakes off her because there were times like Julian and Payne never was anywhere other than in her face. I mean, getting womped, but I was like, ah, man, it doesn't cool out. She's going to do the same thing over. So that still doesn't even feel like that. That upset loses some because I still always thought that was a way for it to happen. And it just did happen.

And if they fought a hundred times, I think it still would happen the same way every time. makes sense. So, AK, you end up, where did you end up, I guess? I'm comfortable putting it forth. I'll put it forth. Again, you can make an argument for top three. For me, it's really close with the Pena Nunes one. Pena, I think, I guess it gets the edge because I think, as far as contender-wise,

I hold her in even lower regard than Strickland. Strickland's a pretty, like, good middleweight and, like, top 10. Pena, I think, was ranked highly, I guess, in the UFC rankings, but that's really by default because Bantamweight is a women's bantamate is a wasteland. So that's really the interesting I do think Strickland's credentials on paper. Now that you look at it, you're like, oh, that does kind of look like the champion's resume

other than the stray losses, right? Going back and re-looking at Sean Strickland's just resume, if you just want to look straight resume, like, it's one of those things, the Alex Pereira knockout, like, threw everyone off the scent so hard, right? Because that was just, that's one of the most embarrassing knockouts

the last several years in the way in which... It's the funniest thing. I know you love it to death, But it's just like if you take that one result out of his whole entire Wikipedia page, the rest kind of looks pretty good, right? Like you have a loss to Camaro in there. You have a loss to Capoeira. And then that's kind of it.

The split decision with Jerry Cannonier, the rest are just wins. Like, it's not a bad resume. The Alex Pereira won threw us so hard off the set that it just, it colors the way we talked about all of this, I feel it. It was inescapable. I agree. Yeah. look, like the Pereira one, the Pereira one dictated the entirety of the discussion because

it was really, really bad. I would push back on the idea that Strickland's resume is like, great or whatever, it's, it's fine. You know, he doesn't have a lot of losses, but he doesn't have a lot of wins that are, that are meaningful or substantive either. So it just, that's what I'm saying, man, though. This is huge. It's the biggest one in the moment.

other than Sarah GSP for now. And I think that that will change and can, but it's why I have it too. So I would say, and I'm actually surprised we haven't brought this up before, but for me personally, the bigger upset here in the middleweight, in the history of UFC middleweight is Silva Weidman. And we haven't, I don't know why we, yeah, because he was the goat, the middleweight goat. He had 10.

He was really old, though. well he had 10 title defenses and 11 i stand on 11 Travis looters a title defense just because he was fat doesn't take that away from anderson all right fine 11 11 11 title defenses i remember very clearly i kind of an emotional connection to that this one because maybe it's this is maybe why i picked this one but i remember telling my friends i don't think Anderson silver was going to lose like i think he will be undefeated for all time boy was that wrong and that fight was such a huge turning point like things never got back to where they were. Now the thing that messes with me a little bit now is like,

what if Anderson Silva was actually trying that night? What if he wasn't goofing around and doing his thing? Like, how does the timeline change with that? And how does that change, you know, the overall impact of that upset relative to Strickland and Adasania? But, you know, to me, that's that. that's ahead of it on the all time list. I would agree that everything is pretty much on the market. I would put it at top five.

I would put it at number five above Rockhold and Bisping because of the both of their tenure as champions that maybe what I'm trying to say here is that I weight that pretty heavily in my consideration. The tenure as champions, the way it came together. the you know the careers afterwards but to me you know sylva wideman was was way bigger competitively um and then i put it just below nunez and paina paina because amanda nunez again a goat uh of the sport and getting dethroned by somebody with a very mediocre resume so i have it is

i have it at number five that's fair i don't know that that I don't know that I can get there with you in that regard, though, because I've always just looked at that fight so weirdly, because like Anderson Silva tricked us all for so long. Like, he's my favorite fighter of all the time. I love the guy to death, but, like, he was almost 40 when that happened, right? Like, his, his ability to do that, that late into his career was so unprecedented that I remember going into that Wydenman fight, and Wyman has all these credentials of all the wrestling feats that he had pulled off.

He was, like, this master grappler. Like, there were real vibes coming out of that camp of, like, this. is this is the guy. He's supposed to, he should have been the guy. But Silva didn't try. But like Chris, but Chris Wybin wasn't even a two to one underdog, you know? But he did try, Steve. Yeah, I had to push back on that because he goose off in all of his fright. So that's what I've told people. But he really goofed off in this one. No, he got really goof off. He's all right. He can't fight anymore. Yeah. No, he got caught.

That's not why he, that's not why he goofed off. He goofed off because he believed he was invincible. No, he goofed off. And he had a lot of reason. He had a lot of reason. He had a lot of a reason to believe he was invisible. He's just coming off of the Stevin-Botter fight. He goofed off because Chris Wyden was being defensively responsible and he couldn't get him to do stupid stuff like Stefan Bonner did or whatever. This is so he's trying to goad him into it. And then, you know, chickens, roost, here you are. Yeah, I have to use the

Jed. I can't call an upset because I called this one thing here because this is, and there's a whole, there's a several dozen people at a Boston pizza in, in, uh, Markham who can I had called this because I was insufferable when I was watching this fight at that Boston piece. I'm sorry. I told you all. Did you call left hook Larry?

Is that what you were like? Yeah, he's going to knock him out with a lefty or? No, I just said wide mood win. They don't need to know what by what method or. Steven, I'm with your argument. If we're factoring in the method, I'm actually totally down on this argument because I would have bet all of my money that Chris Wadden wasn't going to knock out Anderson Silver.

So if we're factoring that in, absolutely think that's a great call. I thought grappling had to come into play. I thought this is finally the guy who was going to expose, you know, so of a supposed like ground week. Well, I guess we saw in the Chal Snowan fight first. And then we thought, well, Wyden's going to do that, but even better, right? But the other big thing that separates this from the upsets we've mentioned is, I think we have, I think people forget how hype.

Jed, you kind of touched upon it, how hyped Wydenin was that. Wyman was hyped as a future champion. He was like, this is a guy who. He wasn't even a two to one underdog. Yeah. The odds were crazy close. I think people were a little skeptical. that he'd be the one to dethrone Silva, of course,

they're skeptical about anyone dethroning Silva, but he was pegged as like, this guy's going to be the next big thing. He's got this big, huge pedigree, this background. So that's very different from Pena, Bisping, who is Bissing, who leads the list of guys we thought would never,

ever, ever become champions, with Sean Strickland also in there. Matt Serra, again, not even in the championship discussion until he won a reality show. So that's probably one thing that keeps the Wyden thing down, but, I mean, the name he beat is, was, I mean, huge, which is crazy.

We need a chart. We need to do that. do a chart of all these five different factors and then like submit our charts infographic because because I feel and then and then decide how we want to weight them because I think there's some obviously some arguments to be made. Steve, this idea for for the for the comparative weight of all these different factors leading into these fights. And I mean, listen, there's no doubt. I mean, Strickland, you know,

Adasani, it's up there. It's definitely up there. But is it is it top top two? I don't know. That seems like a stretch to me. I think the one that I had the hardest putting it over, and I still am going back and forth. And it might end up being one of those things. Where, Jed, you mentioned this, and I think this is a big, a good point.

We're in the moment right now, this could end up being a T.J. Dillishaw, Henan Burrow thing, where years down the line is just, Sean Strickland's got a couple title defenses and is like a pretty damn good middleweight. And like, that's just sort of who he is, right? Like, that's a very possible scenario from all of this. He's still very young, and Eric Nixick is one of the best damn coaches in the entire world.

It's just the BISBing thing is tough for me to put it over Bisbing. And I think that's where I'm waffling back and forth on calling it a top three or not, just because that dude had one eye. We knew who Michael Bisbing was. His career was written. Like, it was done. He lost to Rockhold. Rockhold annihilated him in the first fight.

It was even close. It was not even close. I'm just stuck on Stephen's idea for a radar, chart of these guys with all of the I can see you uh, being it. I can see the, the, or, uh, rain manning. Or the odds here and the public perception and just all this like, all right, who's got the most, the closest to a circle in their chart? Real quick.

I love this idea, Stephen. Real quick. I was, I would do, I do just want to note to one thing before we get out of here. I, I, it's just funny to me because this Alex Pereira is real out of Senia thing is so strange at this point, right? because you look at this result. Alex Pereira is kind of just done everything that Israel Adesneu wasn't able to do, right?

He beats John Strickland in spectacular fashion. He beat Yombov's. He's doing the light heavyweight thing successfully. Their dynamic is just one of- kickboxing titles? Yeah, one two different glory kickboxing title. Their dynamic is forever to me, one of the most interesting and bizarre things I've ever seen

in any sport ever, not even just combat sports, It's just everything, like how intrinsically linked they are on so many different levels. And like Alex helped out Sean for this and gave him advice for it. The levels to which this goes, the iceberg is so deep. It's just, it blows me away, man, every time. Alex Barhera might be the greatest combat athlete of all time. I'm sorry to Henry Sehudo and your fictional story that you tell yourself about being that. This man, everything he touches.

turns to gold. He taught Sean Strickland how to knock out. He's like, hey, come work with me for a week. And suddenly, instead of being this, you know, pillow handed, you know, decision machine, I'm just going to teach you out of punch hard. And then you're going to knock the hell out of Abis and you're going to drop Izzy in round one and put it on him. He's, I don't know what dark arts he's working with, but I would like to train with Alex for a week because who knows where I could go and don't. That's not even talking about. I believe in you, Jeff. We could eat Casey Liden with Alex Pereira.

You're done. Oh, you want a fatality in the cage. We're not ready for that. It's not, it's not prayer related, but I'll be Mr. My last thing I'll say is, I'll be Mr. Diplomatic here and just say, as much as I will, of course, we'll always put the Sarah GSP thing above all else. It's crazy that Strickland at his, at Disney is comfortably in the discussion. Like, if someone tells me they think this is the greatest, if someone tells me they think

this is the greatest M.A upset they've ever seen. I'm not going to go, what? You're insane. I'd be like, yeah, yeah. There's a very strong case for it. This is the greatest upset we've seen in MMA. Again, we'll have to wait to see how it ages. It could age even better. It could age worse.

But it is absolutely not crazy to say it. I don't care if you've been watching MMA for five years, 10 years, 20 years. If you saw this end of the moment and you said to yourself, I can't believe it. I've never seen anything so shocking. I'd be like justified. We can argue about this another time, but it's certainly justified.

So, and I did not think I would be saying that heading into Saturday. No matter how Sean Strickland won, except for the way he actually did, all the other scenarios and imagined, I'd been like, no, no way there's a case for number one. But there is a strong, strong case for it. It's, it's continually, like, as we, the days move forward, it continually just keeps reoccurring to me that this played out in the way it did, and it just blows my mind every time. Last thing on this, and we can end here, if that fight ends at the end of round one,

If that's just it, Sean Strickland, round one knockout, that's how it's in the books. Are we having this same discussion, or is this a different type of discussion? Is this a differently framed discussion? Do you think? I don't think it's that different. If he finished him the way that he almost did, set it up, set him up for a 1-2, clocked him with it, and if he just gets another shot in there and puts him away or is able to, you know, push, just keep that flurry going just a little bit longer.

So the ref has to jump in. I think we're not as surprised as we are now, but I think we still regard it as a shocking win. Because when I'm talking Punch's Chance, I'm thinking like he catches Izzy with something like out of nowhere, catches him with a counter, catches him making a mistake. This was a he walked him down and set him up and looked like he was going to put him away.

And that is almost as shocking as the five round decision. I would concur with that. Yeah, I think that, you know, anyway, I slice it, it's pretty shocking. But if it had been in the first round, you know, it wasn't, It wasn't like, like, A.K. said, like a phantom punch or, you know, anything that was like crazy, a wheel kick or something like that. You know, it was pretty, pretty solid technique, which as it turns out, is pretty beneficial in these UFC middleweight title fights.

I would have thought. I think the tenor is the same, but the texture is different, you know? I think it's still, hey, this is a major upset. What happened? I think the conversation veers are much more to, can Sean Strickland hurt people now? because he knocked out Avis. Now he knocked out Izzy. Like, does he have power now?

Because that would change him as a fighter. And, hey, is his chin going? He's been knocked out in two of his last three fights. So I think those parts of the conversation change it. But I think it's still the rest of this is all the same. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Sean Strickland, middleweight champion in the world,

no matter how many times you say it, it's still a little bit weird to the tongue. I love this sport so damn much. these nights, these weeks, these after, these results, these aftermaths are just what makes this the best damn sport in the world and the most unpredictable thing that you will ever see. None of us know anything. That is the key takeaway from all of this. Don't listen to anyone who says they know anything about MMA because they're lying to you.

None of us know anything. This is very dumb. And when human beings fist fight, weird things happen. Well, I've really enjoyed this today, gentlemen. I think this is going to be really interesting to follow moving forward and see where this age is. right because who knows there's a world where Sean Strickland rattles off. Title of defenses against DDP, Hamzad Shamiyev, Bo Nickel, and all of a sudden we're talking about Sean Strickland

in a completely different pantheon than we ever thought. That is on the table now. My name is Sean O'Shti for AK, for Jed, for Stephen. This has been the MA Fighting Podcast Network. Keep it locked. We love you guys. We'll talk to you soon.