Israel Adesanya’s team has requested a rematch with Sean Strickland in a week’s time

“The universe does its thing and I think Sean is a great fighter,” the specialist told reporters. “I never thought Shawn wasn’t capable of beating Israel, but I thought Israel would perform at his best and it would be a tough fight for Shawn. There is an alternate universe where Yisrael gives his worst performance and Shawn wins and I am in that universe. Today just wasn’t Izzy’s day.”

“We had a great training camp, so no excuses about that. The sparring partners, the technical little things about the camp, the week before the fight – everything was perfect. He came out, it wasn’t his day – he couldn’t see what we see in the corner and we couldn’t get it to him because we had a bad contact this time. It was just a bad night. Why was it a bad night? It was unsuccessful because of the opponent. Let’s not take that away from the opponent.”

“Rematches are always very difficult, but I don’t think we need to change much this time. I asked the management if we could have a rematch as early as next weekend. I don’t think they will agree to it, but I am convinced that we can change the result of the fight by making minor adjustments. I mean, we couldn’t get our plan going because we didn’t have cohesion and understanding in our corner. We have days like that. I think if the rematch happens tomorrow, we can get it right.”

The title fight between Israel Adesanya and Sean Strickland headlined UFC 293 in Sydney went the full distance and ended with the American winning a 49-46 three-round unanimous decision.

UFC president, Dana White, said after the tournament that the Nigerian will have another opportunity in his next fight to regain the championship belt, which he had to reclaim this year after last year’s loss to Alex Pereira.