Strickland vs. du Plessis Prediction – UFC 297 Picks
UFC 297: Strickland vs. du Plessis Picks
When: Saturday, January 20, 2024
Where: Scotiabank Arena, Toronto, Canada
TV: PPV
UFC 297 looks to provide a lot of excitement when they return to Canada on January 24 with a big middleweight title fight at the top. Newly-crowned UFC Middleweight Champion Sean Strickland, fresh off his upset title-winning effort against Israel Adesanya in September, will take on the very dangerous Dricus du Plessis. In his last fight, du Plessis smashed former champ Robert Whittaker, and with all but one of his wins coming by the stoppage route, he represents a difficult title defense for the new champion.
Fight Analysis:
Sean Strickland, 28-5 (11 KOs, 4 Submissions), (-150) vs. Dricus du Plessis, 20-2 (9 KOs, 10 Submissions), (+125)—Odds by Bovada; The bookie that allows you to bet on the game while it’s in progress!
Sean Strickland defends the UFC Middleweight Championship against hard-hitting contender Dricus du Plessis in the UFC 297 main event from Toronto. It’s a bit of a strange setting for a California-based champion to be taking on a challenger from South Africa, but it should be a warmly received event. And as the odds suggest, this is a competitive main event where picking a winner is not easy. Strickland is favored, likely on the strength of beating Adesanya, but du Plessis has won all six of his fights in the UFC and hasn’t tasted defeat in over five years.
Both men are former welterweights moving up in weight midway through their careers. But Strickland, three years older at 32, is a slightly longer guy, with du Plessis stockier. It’s quite a departure from Strickland’s last fight when he took on the elongated Adesanya. But du Plessis has the same reach as Strickland. I’d still imagine the champion trying to do some long-range boxing in this one. But once the South African zeroes in, he’s quite a handful—a hurtful and educated kickboxer whose striking is a major factor. We see he has more submissions than knockouts, with most of those submissions coming earlier in his career when he was a rear-naked choke machine. He is still more than capable of sinking in those holds, as we saw with his face-crank win over Darren Till, but since joining the UFC, we’ve seen his kickboxing take greater hold.
The bottom line is that Strickland is the champion. He was 2-2 in his last four heading into that. Using that as ammo in his fight against Adesanya backfired, but it still contributes to the notion that Strickland is not invulnerable. Losing in the first round to Alex Pereira in 2022 underlines what can happen when Strickland goes off-course against a talented and hard-hitting kickboxer. Throw in his follow-up loss to Jared Canonier, and it’s clear that Strickland isn’t iron-clad against some of the better 185-pounders in the business.
At the same time, he is the champion, and in a bottom-line business, that counts for something. We’ve seen it in the past where a fighter wins the title in an upset. The rest of the world low-rates that fighter, and then that fighter grows into the role. Fighters can become better when they become champions, with the standards elevated and the stakes higher. And it’s not like Strickland went in there and landed a lucky punch or sunk in a freak hold to win the belt. Beating a fighter of Adesanya’s credentials over a 25-minute distance should tell you something about his skill, stamina, inner resources, and overall wherewithal. Adesanya was a decorated kickboxer in his own right, putting daggers into any narrative that Strickland inordinately suffers against this kind of opponent.
I think Strickland is at the top of his game and has earned the respect that says he can stand in there with anyone. Whether he can deal with the hard-hitting and sneaky strikes of du Plessis while also navigating the grappling element of his game remains to be seen. It could be said that du Plessis has more routes to a win, with his submission game something that’s more likely to surface at this level than Strickland’s—not that Strickland is lost on the ground by any means. He’s good there too.
I wonder if Strickland’s style was more suited to Adesanya and how the former champ waits and sometimes isn’t very aggressive. His opponent here is a different kind of fighter, both in dimensions, style, and overall approach. But then another part of me wonders if du Plessis can go five full rounds if he needs to do so. We’ve seen his stamina wane in fights, the vast majority of which are under three full rounds. Now he’s taking on a fighter who is proven over the 25-minute distance against the best in the world.
When you take Strickland’s stamina, along with all the little tricky veteran things he does in the octagon, and the versatility of his skill, he becomes a fuller fighting package than what it appears on the surface. It’s easy to look at this fight and opt for the more-explosive and impressive-looking du Plessis. Strickland doesn’t even look like what you’ve come to think of a middleweight champion in the UFC. It plays tricks with the mind. Then along comes this challenger knocking people’s blocks off, and the champ starts looking a little worse than he really is.
I don’t question the power or ability of du Plessis. He might be able to close in on Strickland and start teeing off with those shots, in which case the champion might be in trouble. But if Strickland can respond, get off his own shots, and get du Plessis into the third, fourth, and fifth rounds, we could start to see Strickland’s experience and guts pay off. I see Strickland coming on strong in the second half of the fight and getting it done. I’ll take Strickland.
My Pick to Win: I’m betting on Sean Strickland at -150 betting odds. The challenger du Plessis is certainly dangerous, and this is a tough test for the new champion. But I feel in the end, Strickland’s toughness, trickiness, fighting IQ, and stamina will see him to the end a winner. Bet your Strickland/du Plessis prediction for FREE by scoring a 100% real cash bonus on your first deposit at one of our numerous top tier online sportsbooks!