Coach Conversation | Sean Strickland vs Dricus Du Plessis (2024)

For UFC 297, Kyte called upon Eliot Marshall, co-owner and head instructor at Easton Training Center in Denver, Colorado to provide his thoughts on four points heading into the fascinating middleweight title main event between Sean Strickland and Dricus Du Plessis, which closes out the evening at Scotiabank Arena on Saturday night in Toronto.

Best Trait of Each Fighter

Kyte: At a time in the sport where everyone is pretty solid everywhere, generally speaking, what is the one thing that each of these competitors do better than anyone else? What is the one element to their game that stands out the most?

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And I’ve had that conversation with Eric.

Sean did everything right. He had the game plan, 100 percent, and Izzy has talked to Eric about “You did a great job,” so they did all the work, but Izzy also showed up at what —50 percent? 60 percent?

Marshall: He looked slow, he looked tired —every bad characteristic that someone could show up with for a fight, he had. He looked like he didn’t want to be there.

Kyte: I think he thought that he was just gonna walk through him.

Marshall: And that happens with champions. We saw it with Jon Jones against a bunch of guys at the end of his light heavyweight career. (Dominick) Reyes, Thiago (Santos), Anthony Smith —taking nothing away from those guys.

Listen, as much as (Sean and Eric) did everything right, Izzy f***** up.

Here’s the thing with Rob Whittaker, though —and everyone likes to look at the actual age of a fighter —but Rob Whittaker has 31 fights; that’s a lot of fights, man. That’s a lot of training camps, and think about all the times he’s been injured. That’s a lot of wear on a body, so it’s never really about your actual age —it can be a factor, but what factors more is your fight age.

Kyte: I think that’s a thing we’re seeing more and more as we continue to progress, and we’ll be discussing more and more going forward.

Path to Victory for Each Fighter

Kyte: Everyone would love a 10-second knockout or a quick submission, but that’s not often how these things go, especially not at the championship level. Instead, it’s usually the competitor that has crafted the better game plan and did the better job of executing things inside the Octagon that comes away with their hand raised and the gold around their waist.

So, how does either man get it done on Saturday night?

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Marshall: It’s the same or at least very similar: put the other guy on their heels. If you can put them on their heels, neither one of them fights well going backwards.

Marshall: For me, it’s Sean’s grappling.

We’ve never seen it. We wonder if he has it or where is he with it? And what that will come down to is can Dricus put Sean on the back foot? If he can’t put Sean on the back foot, he’s not going to put him down.

Kyte: Right. If Sean is allowed to keep coming forward, then he doesn’t have to wrestle, but if he has to go backwards, will we see him say, “This can be my change-up.”

Marshall: Reactive double legs take so much timing. Georges (St-Pierre) was so good with them because his timing was impeccable, and he mixed it up with proactive double legs.

I don’t think we’ve seen Dricus shoot too many reactive double legs, where he’s the one on the back foot or even shots in general. He likes to push the pace, so that’s what it is for me.

I don’t think he’s going to shoot right away, but I do think that’s the X factor.

Kyte: One of the things for me here — and I agree with the grappling being a very big X factor — is Sean’s mindset.

He presents loose cannon very well, but this is the first time where he needs to get all the animosity and energy from getting into a fight with this dude in the crowd out of his system before Saturday night, because if he doesn’t get it under wraps, he might get knocked out.

If he fights emotionally, looking to prove a point, I think he gets beaten because he makes a mistake and Dricus makes him pay.

Marshall: I agree, but I don’t think we’re gonna know until we get in the cage.

One Coaching Curiosity

Kyte: Coaches see the sport differently and look at the sport differently than anyone else, picking up on different things and paying attention to movements, habits, or intangible pieces that others might not notice, but that could have a significant impact on the action inside the Octagon.

Every matchup offers its own unique collection of elements that might pique a coach’s interest and get them paying a little closer attention to once the fight gets underway.

So what is that one thing in this matchup?

Marshall: I don’t know much about Dricus’ coaches. Obviously, I know a lot about Eric, and I wanna see what Eric came up with this time.

I know Eric really, really well so I don’t necessarily want to say the thing that he does with his fighters, but I’m interested to see if that will work. If Dricus has to defend that and keep defending that, he won’t be able to get off his offense, and that comes down to footwork and motion.

Kyte: Similarly on that coaching point, an interesting thing to me is that title fights are different; these big moments, these big opportunities are just different.

Yes, these guys have been in title fights at home in South Africa, a couple in KSW, but this is the UFC and you’re going against a coach in Eric that has helped guide three people to UFC titles over the last couple years. This dude knows everything that’s coming, so how do you deal with all this?

You’re the new guys here —how do you deal with it?

Leon’s coach, Dave Lovell, knew the assignment. That first title fight against Kamaru (Usman), he did and said everything correctly the whole way through. What does Dricus’ coach, Morne Visser, do the first time he’s in a UFC championship fight and his guy gets worked in the opening round?

Eric knows exactly how to speak to Sean, how to re-settle him, re-focus him; showed it in the Izzy fight after the second round. So let’s see what Dricus’ team is able to do in this spot.

Maybe they’re great. Maybe they roll right into it and thrive, but we don’t know.

Marshall: We just don’t know.