Swish Tribune

  By Stuart Graeber, Swish Tribune This past weekend sent shockwaves through the UFC and the MMA community as a whole. In UFC 293, Sean Strickland defeated Israel Adesanya by way of unanimous decision. This was a complete shock, with Adesanya favorite to win this fight by a significant margin. This was the biggest upset in UFC history, with Sean Strickland being a +650 underdog. Lets talk about how it happened. Israel Adesanya is internationally renowned for his superior striking and defensive capabilities. Adesanya has made his money on being a counter-striker with precise kicks and punches. Because of this, the most common strategy used against Adesanya is extremely passive fighting, waiting for him to make a mistake. The problem with this is that it allows Adesanya to become comfortable in the pocket and when that happens, there isn't a man alive who can strike with him. Sean Strickland took a different approach. Sean Strickland's strategy against Adesanya was to do the comp...

  By Stuart Graeber, Swish Tribune On August 19th, 2023, the UFC broke gate records at the TD Garden as well as multiple UFC selling records. UFC 292 broke the record for most PPV buys for a Bantamweight fight ever and the marketing was spearheaded by the most popular fighter in the UFC, Sean O'Malley. Suga Sean has been dominant on his rise to the top in the UFC with his only loss coming via injury when Marlon "Chito" Vera struck a nerve in O'Malley's foot causing a stoppage. Going into UFC 292, Sean O'Malley was 16-1 with 7 TKO's. O'Malley's opponent was Aljamain Sterling, the Bantamweight Champ at the time. Sterling was 23-3 going into this fight and the favorite according to all sports-books. The story of this fight was always going to be O'Malley's striking versus Sterling's jiu-jitsu. All fight week long, O'Malley had been open about the fact that he was going to do everything in his power to keep the fight standing and Sterli...