Sean Strickland thinks the rematch is going to be harder

The following morning after Sean Strickland dominated Israel Adesanya to become the UFC Middleweight Champion, he sat down and spoke with Daniel Cormier before leaving to the airport.  

“I talked to Sean Strickland.  I ran into him Sunday morning as we were getting ready to go to the airport… We sat down and we talked for a minute.  I asked him, ‘when you were in there, what did you feel?’  He goes, ‘I honestly couldn’t believe what was happening,'” Strickland told Cormier.  

“He honestly couldn’t believe what was happening, he couldn’t grip what was happening because he was not only beating Adesanya, but he was beating Adesanya in a way that he couldn’t even have anticipated,” said Cormier.  

“He was like, DC, ‘I promise you, I didn’t think that the fight was going to be like that.’  He was like,‘I was having my way with him.’  He goes, ‘I don’t understand.'” 

“One thing that he did say and it’s key, he said, ‘but in the rematch,’ because I imagine there’s going to be a rematch, he goes, ‘I think it’ll be harder.’  He thinks he might have got overlooked by Adesanya a little bit.  He said, ‘in the rematch I think it’ll be harder.’  I said, well, If you fight that way, I don’t know how many people can compete with you my man because you fought beautifully.  

“We talked about his Philly shell defense, his boxing.  I said, you’re boxing out there.  He said, ‘I box so much in practice.’  He goes, ‘I figured when it was working, I kept going with it.’  He said, ‘The crazy thing is DC, I wrestled so much in preparation for this and I didn’t have to use it.’  If Sean Strickland has those abilities on the ground and we didn’t see it, we might be starting to see whole new type of contender, or champion in this weight class.”

“Lastly, he noted that there are some very tough fights for him in the division, but he’ll be ready for it.   

‘