Dana White confirms Sean Strickland will be rewarded with the next middleweight title shot despite sitting out and waiting
14/08/2024 15:05
With Dricus Du Plessis set to defend his middleweight title against Israel Adesanya this coming Saturday at UFC 305, UFC CEO Dana White may have already mapped out the next move in the 185lb division.
The upcoming fight between Dricus Du Plessis and Israel Adesanya is one of the most highly anticipated middleweight fights in recent years, due to the ongoing feud between them.
Although ‘The Last Stylebender’ hasn’t picked up a win since losing the title back at UFC 293, because of his dominant reign as a champion, he is being thrust straight back into a title fight.
Dana White confirms Sean Strickland will be the next middleweight title challenger
Missing out on the title shot this time around was former champion, Sean Strickland.
The outspoken 33-year-old lost his title to ‘Stillknocks’ back in January at UFC 297, in a very close fight in Canada. Following the loss, Strickland claimed that he was robbed by the Canadian judges and demanded an immediate rematch.
Despite that, the UFC decided to strike while they could by making Du Plessis vs Adesanya, not wanting to miss out on that fight for a second time.
That left ‘Tarzan’ needing to fight in the meantime, in which he narrowly beat Paulo Costa at UFC 302 at the beginning of June.
Following his win over the Brazilian, Strickland stated that he would not fight again and would sit on the sidelines and wait to be given the next title shot, whether against Du Plessis or Adesanya.
That, though, didn’t sit well with the majority of the MMA world who believe Robert Whittaker to be in a more deserved position. Not only that, but ‘The Reaper’ has booked to fight the middleweight boogeyman, Khamzat Chimaev, and with a win will undoubtedly deserve a title shot.
However, talking to Jim Rome this past Tuesday, UFC CEO Dana White confirmed that Strickland will be next to fight for the title.
“Listen, Sean Strickland right now is the number one ranked middleweight in the world, and the answer is yes (he will be next to fight for the title). We also have Whittaker vs Chimaev so we’re gonna have some fun fights.
“All these fights are going to play out in the middleweight division which is gonna create some unbelievable fights for us going into (2025),” White revealed.
Dricus Du Plessis comments on the middleweight title picture
Realistically, the fight that made the most sense to be made, was Whittaker vs Strickland, however, Strickland wasn’t willing to face the former champion so Whittaker decided to ask the UFC to re-book his fight with ‘Borz’.
Having said that, the current champion, Du Plessis, believes as of right now, Strickland has a better claim for a title fight than Whittaker does, but he isn’t too confident in that.
“As of right now, I think it’s Strickland, well, I don’t know. Whittaker does have the two wins, Strickland shouldn’t have been there in the first place, he got it by default and then proved that he deserves to be there so that’s amazing,” Du Plessis told ShakMMA.
“A split decision (against me), it wasn’t a split decision that’s a crazy call, it was 100% unanimous but, the winner of Khamzat and Whittaker is gonna get the title shot, that’s got to happen. Strickland says he’s gonna wait, he’s gonna be waiting quite a while in my opinion… If Whittaker beats Khamzat, he’s 100% getting the title shot,” Du Plessis added.
With that, if Du Plessis does retain the title this coming Saturday, maybe he can do ‘The Reaper’ a solid and demand he fights the more deserved contender.
