I am not going to beat around the bush.
Strickland in his prime (2023-2024) was criminally underrated. Actually beat Izzy (while Pereira was getting owned the entire fight against Adesanya before Goddard gifted him an early stoppage), KOed the Dagestani Magomedov, and arguably beat Dricus in the first match (looked like Dricus got tortured while Strickland was pretty fresh -- a draw would have been more appropriate).
Strickland looked awful in his last fight (2025), but from 2023 to 2024, Strickland and Dricus were pretty much the new breed of Middleweights, at the very top of the division (tier 2 at the time was Adesanya, tier 3 Whittaker, and tier 4 was everyone else -- Cannonier, Costa, Vettori, etc, all of whom got beat by Whittaker, and by Izzy with even greater ease). They were essentially equal relative to the rest of the division.
Now, there is a new tier. It's called the Khamzat tier. DDP stayed in tier 1, Moustache Strickland has gone down to tier 2 (and even now, he is the only opponent to not have gotten finished by DDP in the latter's last 6 fights), Adesanya moved to tier 3 because he lost to Imavov (and Nassourdine Imavov got owned by Strickland, further cementing my point), and Khamzat... well, he is in a league of his own (not only destroyed Whittaker with less difficulty than anyone in the past, but also destroyed Sean Strickland multiple times in training). He's pretty much tier 0 (but DDP has the champ mentality and could potentially grow more and beat Khamzat).
Middleweight is more exciting than it has been at any point in the last five years. It's just a shame people don't understand how good the division has gotten, that an Izzy who had just KOed Pereira (and had practically beaten Pereira in the first fight prior to the early stoppage) and easily dealt with everyone else could not hold a handle to the likes of Dricus and Strickland. And now Khamzat has entered the picture, to top it off.
(Regarding my statement about Adesanya's performance against Pereira in their first MMA bout -- back in the day, I really disliked Izzy and wanted him to lose, laughed at the guy and was one of the millions of people who pretended Izzy got done in, but in retrospect, that wasn't really the case).
Strickland in his prime (2023-2024) was criminally underrated. Actually beat Izzy (while Pereira was getting owned the entire fight against Adesanya before Goddard gifted him an early stoppage), KOed the Dagestani Magomedov, and arguably beat Dricus in the first match (looked like Dricus got tortured while Strickland was pretty fresh -- a draw would have been more appropriate).
Strickland looked awful in his last fight (2025), but from 2023 to 2024, Strickland and Dricus were pretty much the new breed of Middleweights, at the very top of the division (tier 2 at the time was Adesanya, tier 3 Whittaker, and tier 4 was everyone else -- Cannonier, Costa, Vettori, etc, all of whom got beat by Whittaker, and by Izzy with even greater ease). They were essentially equal relative to the rest of the division.
Now, there is a new tier. It's called the Khamzat tier. DDP stayed in tier 1, Moustache Strickland has gone down to tier 2 (and even now, he is the only opponent to not have gotten finished by DDP in the latter's last 6 fights), Adesanya moved to tier 3 because he lost to Imavov (and Nassourdine Imavov got owned by Strickland, further cementing my point), and Khamzat... well, he is in a league of his own (not only destroyed Whittaker with less difficulty than anyone in the past, but also destroyed Sean Strickland multiple times in training). He's pretty much tier 0 (but DDP has the champ mentality and could potentially grow more and beat Khamzat).
Middleweight is more exciting than it has been at any point in the last five years. It's just a shame people don't understand how good the division has gotten, that an Izzy who had just KOed Pereira (and had practically beaten Pereira in the first fight prior to the early stoppage) and easily dealt with everyone else could not hold a handle to the likes of Dricus and Strickland. And now Khamzat has entered the picture, to top it off.
(Regarding my statement about Adesanya's performance against Pereira in their first MMA bout -- back in the day, I really disliked Izzy and wanted him to lose, laughed at the guy and was one of the millions of people who pretended Izzy got done in, but in retrospect, that wasn't really the case).
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