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Events · UFC 293: Adesanya vs. Strickland · Israel Adesanya vs Sean Strickland
From the tape · 9 Sep 2023

Israel Adesanya vs Sean Strickland

UFC 293: Adesanya vs. Strickland · Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Result

Sean Strickland beat Israel Adesanya

Method
Decision - Unanimous
Round
5 of 5
Clock
5:00
Middleweight TitleTitle fightMainReferee · Marc Goddard

We published no prediction for this bout. Everything on this page is the official record and the tape it was fought on — the result, the round-by-round counts, the judges’ cards where they exist and the sportsbook line where one was published. Our graded calls start in 2026 and live on the public record.

Red corner IsraelAdesanya“The Last Stylebender”City Kickboxing · Lagos
VSOn the tape
Blue corner SeanStricklandXtreme Couture · Anaheim, California
Middleweight Title5 rounds9 Sep 2023
The story going in
  • Has finished 5 of 13 UFC wins.
  • Comes in on a 2-fight win streak.
  • Has finished 5 of 14 UFC wins.
24-6
Record
31-7
34
Age
−2 yr32
+3″6' 4"
Height
6' 1"
+4″80″
Reach
76″
Switch
Stance
Orthodox
15
UFC bouts
+419
+3%5/1338% of wins
Finishes
5/1436% of wins
City Kickboxing
Gym
Xtreme Couture
Lagos
From
Anaheim, California
Vitals, record, nickname and camp come from the public UFC fighter register and are current, not a snapshot of fight night. UFC bouts, finish rate and every storyline line are counted off the official UFC fight record. A tick marks the side holding the raw edge in that row — longer reach, taller, younger, more bouts, a higher finish rate. It is a fact about the tape, not a prediction, and rows with no clean comparison (record, stance, gym, hometown) carry no tick at all. Any row we cannot fill on both sides is left out rather than half-drawn. Streaks, bout counts and finish rates are as they stood going into this fight — this bout and everything after it is excluded from the count.

Round by round

Every round the fight went, shaded by where the significant strikes actually landed — the takedowns, control time and knockdowns beside them, and how the three judges scored that round.

UFCStats · per round

5 rounds of tape

Round 15:00 of action⚡ 1 KD Strickland
Israel Adesanya12 sig landed
HEAD8%1 of 20BODY25%3 of 7LEGS67%8 of 12
Sean Strickland27 sig landed
HEAD81%22 of 42BODY4%1 of 4LEGS15%4 of 6
12 of 39
Sig.
strikes
27 of 52
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:00
Control
0:14
0
Knock-
downs
1
Distance 12Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 11Clinch 11Ground 5
Judges · this round · Adesanya firstEric Colón9–10David Lethaby9–10Clemens Werner9–10
Round 25:00 of action
Israel Adesanya20 sig landed
HEAD15%3 of 35BODY35%7 of 12LEGS50%10 of 17
Sean Strickland16 sig landed
HEAD69%11 of 22BODY31%5 of 8LEGS0%0 of 2
20 of 64
Sig.
strikes
16 of 32
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:00
Control
0:00
0
Knock-
downs
0
Distance 20Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 16Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Adesanya firstEric Colón10–9David Lethaby10–9Clemens Werner10–9
Round 35:00 of action
Israel Adesanya21 sig landed
HEAD19%4 of 27BODY48%10 of 17LEGS33%7 of 13
Sean Strickland20 sig landed
HEAD60%12 of 32BODY40%8 of 9LEGS0%0 landed
21 of 57
Sig.
strikes
20 of 41
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:00
Control
0:00
0
Knock-
downs
0
Distance 21Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 20Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Adesanya firstEric Colón9–10David Lethaby9–10Clemens Werner9–10
Round 45:00 of action
Israel Adesanya20 sig landed
HEAD50%10 of 35BODY35%7 of 10LEGS15%3 of 6
Sean Strickland38 sig landed
HEAD58%22 of 46BODY39%15 of 16LEGS3%1 of 1
20 of 51
Sig.
strikes
38 of 63
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:00
Control
0:00
0
Knock-
downs
0
Distance 20Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 38Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Adesanya firstEric Colón9–10David Lethaby9–10Clemens Werner9–10
Round 55:00 of actionEnded 5:00
Israel Adesanya21 sig landed
HEAD19%4 of 37BODY52%11 of 14LEGS29%6 of 9
Sean Strickland36 sig landed
HEAD50%18 of 44BODY44%16 of 25LEGS6%2 of 2
21 of 60
Sig.
strikes
36 of 71
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:00
Control
0:00
0
Knock-
downs
0
Distance 21Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 36Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Adesanya firstEric Colón9–10David Lethaby9–10Clemens Werner9–10

Significant strikes, takedowns, control time, knockdowns and submission attempts exactly as UFCStats recorded them for this bout, round by round. Zone percentages are that round’s landed head, body and leg counts over their own total — raw arithmetic, nothing modelled or smoothed. A round in which a fighter landed nothing shades empty and reads zero; it is never filled in from the round before.

The cards, totalled

The judges’ final totals, the media’s cards beside them, and how these judges usually score. Their round-by-round 10–9s are with the rounds above.

Official card

Unanimous Decision

Referee · Marc Goddard
Israel AdesanyaSean Strickland
Official totals — Israel Adesanya first
JudgeTotal
Eric Colón2.0 avg spread · 43% wide46–49
David Lethaby2.1 avg spread · 44% wide46–49
Clemens Werner2.1 avg spread · 50% wide46–49

Each judge’s round-by-round scores sit with the round they belong to, in the round-by-round section above — switch a round there and the three cards for it change with the stats.

Media cards — 28 scored, Israel Adesanya first · unofficial

MM AJunkie.com45–49
Chris De Santiago MiddleEasy.com45–49
Danny Segura MMAJunkie.com45–49
Jed Meshew MMAFighting.com45–49
Dan Levi Best Fight Picks45–49
Phil Murphy ESPN46–49
Edwin Ayala Sherdog.com46–49
Devin Tejada BloodyElbow.com46–49
Jay Pettry Sherdog.com46–49
Eddie Mercado BloodyElbow.com46–49
Bloody Elbow.com46–49
Combat Press.com46–49
Alex Behunin MMA Mania46–49
Drake Riggs MMAMania.com46–49
Nick Baldwin theScore46–49
John Pollock POST Wrestling46–49
Jake Noecker Cageside Press46–49
Kendrick Johnson The Sports Daily46–49
Ryan Frederick WrestlingObserver.com46–49
Sheehan SevereMMA.com46–49
Dayne Fox BloodyElbow.com46–49
Scott Fontana New York Post46–49
Paul Fontaine WrestlingObserver.com46–49
Keith Shillan Sherdog.com46–48
Steve Duncan mma.uno47–48
Daniel Yanofsky The Sporting News47–48
Dominik Durniat ddreporter Tv47–48
MM AMania.com47–48

Fan vote · unofficial

49-46 Strickland · 50%49-45 Strickland · 24%48-47 Strickland · 12%50-45 Strickland · 6%50-44 Strickland · 4%

1,206 fan cards submitted to MMA Decisions.

Official cards come from the UFCStats fight record and MMA Decisions. Media cards and the fan vote are MMA Decisions’ own collection and are not official. Judge tendency figures are that judge’s whole recorded history, not this bout — they are context for how a card was scored, never a claim that it was scored wrongly.

Takedowns

Takedowns

The level change — head to head

Career UFC takedown rates. Red corner left, blue corner right.

Israel Adesanya

0.05takedowns / 15 min
0.05 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
0.66 / 15m
0.56 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
1.06 / 15m
9%
ACCURACY
62%
0.10 / 15m
SUB ATT
0.10 / 15m

Sean Strickland

0.66takedowns / 15 min

Career UFC takedown rates exactly as UFCStats publishes them: takedowns landed per 15 minutes, completion rate, submission attempts per 15 minutes, and the share of takedowns tried on them that they stuffed. Attempts per 15 is the one derived figure — landed ÷ completion rate — and it is omitted wherever either input is missing. UFCStats writes 0% where no attempt was recorded at all, so a percentage of exactly zero reads “n/a” here rather than as a measured rate. “Field” is the average fighter in that weight class, or across every division where a class is too small to average. Rate bars run to the population’s 95th percentile (6.86 takedowns / 15m); a fighter above it pins the bar. Percentages are drawn on their own axis.

Ranked in Middleweight

The market story

Where the price started and where it finished — the sportsbook consensus, with the vig removed. We captured no price series for this bout, so there is no chart to draw.

Israel Adesanya↑ +5.4pp
open 76.4%close 81.8%
Sean Strickland↓ −5.4pp
open 23.6%close 18.2%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

Israel Adesanya opened at 76.4% and closed at 81.8% (+5.4pp), with Sean Strickland moving the other way by the same amount — the two are one de-vigged pair, so they always sum to 100%. There is no line between those two points because nobody recorded one: we hold the open and the close for this bout, not the days in between.

Show the numbers
CornerOpen (US)Close (US)Open %Close %Move
Israel Adesanya-430-57476.4%81.8%+5.4pp
Sean Strickland30042823.6%18.2%−5.4pp
Opening and closing moneylines from BestFightOdds (data/refs/bfo_fighter_moneylines.csv), one row per fighter per bout, de-vigged pairwise so the two corners sum to 100% · dated 2023-09-10 on the odds record (1d from the card date; the nearest day inside a two-day window is used, never a guess) · scraped 2026-06-10. No price series was captured for this bout, so no line is drawn between the two points.
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