Sean Strickland has proven to be a difficult problem for other fighters to solve in recent times.
Dricus du Plessis was able to get his hand raised at UFC 297 in order to claim the middleweight title at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto.
Even though he remained undefeated inside the Octagon, it wasn’t an easy night for the South African either.
Sean Strickland’s unique fighting style gave him some issues specifically in regards to landing significant damage on the defending champion.
Ahead of their UFC 312 rematch, there are things that the South African champion can do to ensure that the fight is more decisively in his favor the second time around.
Kamaru Usman says Dricus du Plessis needs to make his shots count more
The former UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman was the second man to defeat Sean Strickland inside the Octagon.
Usman’s fifth consecutive win at 170-pounds came at UFC 210 in April of 2017 at the KeyBank Center in Buffalo, New York where he secured a one-sided unanimous decision win.
On a recent episode of his Pound 4 Pound podcast alongside Henry Cejudo, ‘The Nigerian Nightmare’ spoke from experience about the game plan that he used to beat Strickland.
Usman said that he came into the fight knowing that it would be difficult to hit his opponent’s head and with him being very effective at checking kicks, this meant targeting his body which is left more vulnerable by the fact that he doesn’t tend to move out of the way of strikes, preferring to block or parry them instead.
He acknowledged that Dricus du Plessis did do this at UFC 297 but argued that committing to this and throwing quality over quantity might serve him well in Sydney.
“I just think he needs to be a little bit more accurate,” Usman said.
“For me, that’s the adjustment that I would make, I would say be a little bit more accurate.
“Sean Strickland can hurt you if he can land flush and sharp, he can hurt you but for a guy, we can say that DDP probably has the power advantage here so I would say work a lot on being a little bit more precise with your strikes and economical with it so when you land, make sure they mean something.”
Dricus du Plessis isn’t known for being an accurate fighter
Dricus du Plessis has received criticism in the past for having a messy fighting style but it works for him.
‘Stillknocks’ isn’t the most accurate or refined striker, he’s even admitted in the past that he doesn’t put much thought into what he’s going to do next.
This worked out well for him against Sean Strickland in January of last year because he wasn’t afraid to throw big shots even if it meant exposing himself or missing.
That being said, if he is able to land on Strickland at a better rate, it’s going to make it much more difficult for the conservative approach of the challenger to do more damage than him and win rounds.