Sean Strickland plans on dragging Paulo Costa to deep waters at UFC 302.
Strickland (28-6 MMA, 15-6 UFC) meets Costa (14-3 MMA, 6-3 UFC) in Saturday’s co-main occasion (pay-per-view/ESPN2/ESPN+) at Prudential Middle in Newark, N.J.
The previous middleweight champion received a style of a bloody battle when he misplaced his title to Dricus Du Plessis by break up resolution at UFC 297. He envisions one other five-round struggle when he takes on Brazilian powerhouse Costa.
“UFC 302, man, it’s going to be a massacre,” Strickland mentioned in the course of the UFC 302 Countdown. “I feel that me and Costa, we’re going to go within the deep water. It’s going to be a 25-minute struggle.
“I feel we’re each going to be one another in that third, fourth spherical, pondering, ‘F*ck, we’ve received yet one more spherical.’ However mentally, as all the time, I’m able to die for what I would like, and I feel I’m going to choose him aside.”
Strickland’s head coach Eric Nicksick likes that the matchup is 5 rounds, the place he expects his star pupil to excel.
“The 5 rounds, I feel undoubtedly favors us,” Nicksick informed Submission Radio. “And that’s the mentality proper now, is to attempt to drag this dude into some deep waters. I’m hoping we will get him out of there by Spherical 4 or Spherical 5.
“However this dude’s robust. He’s gritty. He’s sturdy. Nevertheless it’s going to be as much as us to simply hold chipping away at him, chipping away at him. That that’s the objective. That’s the objective. I’m not attempting to make a prediction, however I’m simply telling you what we predict out of our athlete, and that’s it.”
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