Sean Strickland’s coach Eric Nicksick has already spoken about how a rematch with Dricus Du Plessis won’t need big changes from them.
Their first encounter at UFC 297 where Du Plessis came away with a split decision to become the middleweight champion, was a closely contested affair over five rounds.
Making small adjustments before running it back will be key because, as we saw in the first fight, there isn’t much to separate these two.
The fight was predominantly a striking exchange between them but the occasional takedown attempts from Du Plessis opened up some moments that they could capitalize on in the rematch, in Nicksick’s opinion.
Eric Nicksick Says Sean Strickland Can Use Transitional Grappling Against Dricus Du Plessis
Nicksick knows better than to expect his fighter to go out there in a title fight and start shooting for takedowns.
Strickland’s style is very set in its ways and we saw that when he faced elite strikers in Alex Pereira and Israel Adesanya, and didn’t once try to take the fight to the ground.
Where Nicksick feels they can have success after watching the first fight play out is in the transitions after Du Plessis attempts takedowns.
The Xtreme Couture head coach was able to take lessons from UFC 297 and the time he cornered Brad Tavares against “Stillknocks”, to find this one area.
“The one thing I will bring up that I feel like Sean doesn’t give himself enough credit for – so when Dricus took Sean down, there was some transitional grappling, things that I want to see Sean implement a little bit more. Sean never was really held down, we were never like taken down and laid on our back but there, Sean’s really good at hitting the switch and Sean’s really good at counterbalancing and taking the back to where I think Sean could implement a little ground and pound and top pressure himself.
“Anecdotally looking back at what Brad did, when Brad fought Dricus, Brad got on top and Brad rode Dricus all the first round so I think Dricus is a very good topside grappler, I don’t think he’s that great off his back so I’m not saying we need to go and initiate the wrestling but if the wrestling does happen, I think Sean can reverse those positions and get on top and create some havoc up there.”
