I would favor Strickland if they were fighting in the smaller octagon at the UFC apex. Adesanya doesn’t throw enough volume to separate himself and cleanly win rounds in close quarters. That’s one of the reasons, among others, that he lost two of the first three rounds on every judges scorecard to Jan Blachowicz and those were striking only rounds.
Adesanya has very good footwork so when he is fighting in the bigger octagon, with space to work, his opponents struggle to land. They cannot confine him to one area and because of this are left following him as he picks at them from a distance. If Strickland had previously demonstrated the footwork necessary to cut off the bigger cage, which he definitely has not, this would be a close fight.
If Strickland could compromise Adesanya’s movement early with leg kicks, which Poatan appeared close to achieving in their last fight, it would force Adesanya to fight at Strickland’s preferred range. Strickland doesn’t normally utilize leg kicks so this is wishful thinking but there are definitely ways Sean could hypothetically make it a close fight.
I expect Adesanya to win, likely by decision, but playing him at -650 is a bad beat waiting to happen.
