The UFC made its second trip to Australia in 2023 when it landed in Sydney for UFC 293, headlined by a middleweight title fight between Israel Adesanya and Sean Strickland.
No, it wasn’t the grudge match fans had hoped for between “The Last Stylebender” and South Africa’s Dricus Du Plessis, who held a tense face-off inside the octagon earlier this year. But timing had scuttled that fight, and should Adesanya get the job done Saturday, as most expect he will, that bout is still waiting in the wings. In the meantime, Adesanya had the opportunity to do the “man dance” with Strickland, in his first attempted title defense of his second middleweight reign.
In the evening’s co-main event, meanwhile, two heavyweights on opposite trajectories were set to collide. Tai Tuivasa had lost his last two fights coming into the night, including a setback against French heavyweight Ciryl Gane in Paris a year ago. Alexander Volkov, a former Bellator MMA champion and divisional mainstay, had won two straight, and was looking to inch closer to a long-desired title shot that always seemed to be so close, yet so far for “Drago.”
Following Saturday’s UFC 293, tune in to the post-fight press conference to stay on top of all the latest news and developments. A live stream is available in the embed above.
