Sean O’Malley praises Sean Strickland for his win over Paulo Costa at UFC 302: “His style is so sweet”

Sean O’Malley is praising Sean Strickland for his win over Paulo Costa at UFC 302.

It was just last weekend, on Saturday June 1st at UFC 302 that saw Sean Strickland (29-6 MMA) defeat Paulo Costa (14-4 MMA) by split decision in the co-main middleweight bout.

‘Tarzan’ is now back in the win column after previously losing his middleweight crown to Dricus Du Plessis (21-2 MMA) in January of this year at UFC 297 by way of split decision. Strickland now plans to play the waiting game in hopes of a future title shot.

It was during a recent episode of the ‘TimboSugarShow’ that bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley reflected on last weekend’s fight and Sean Stricklands’ performance:

“His style is so sweet. He’s primarily orthodox but he’ll march at you checking kicks into southpaw, throwing teeps from both stances. His eyes are so good, he’s hard to hit on his chin, unless you’re Alex Pereira he hit him on his chin, but yeah that would be a nightmare fight. You could tell at the end of like going to the end of the first round you’re like, this isn’t good. This is not looking good for Costa.”   

With the loss, ‘Borrachinha’ has the unenviable record of 4 losses in his last 5 fights inside of the Octagon. Costa has been defeated by Sean Strickland, Robert Whittaker (25-7 MMA), Marvin Vettori (19-7 MMA) and Israel Adesanya (24-3 MMA) during that stretch, with his lone win in that time coming against Luke Rockhold.

Were you watching Sean Strickland vs. Paulo Costa last weekend? Do you agree with Sean O’Malley’s assessment of the former middleweight champion?

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