While Strickland can take solace in the fact that many fans—and White—believe he did enough to defeat Du Plessis on Saturday, there is no undoing the judges' decision, which was also not a robbery by any stretch.
He lost, he's no longer the champion, and he will need to return to the drawing board if he ever wants to be the titleholder again.
We'd like to see Strickland attempt to get back on track against unbeaten Khamzat Chimaev.
The Russian started his UFC career as one of the most active fighters on the roster, but he has spent most of the last two years cursed by long stretches of inactivity. His last fight occurred at UFC 284 last October when, after a grotesque scale failure in his final welterweight fight, he was set to step up to middleweight to battle Top 10 contender Paulo Costa.
Had Chimaev fought and beaten Costa, he might well have gotten a crack at Strickland before Du Plessis on star power alone. However, Costa was forced out of the matchup and replaced by former welterweight champ Kamaru Usman, who was debuting at middleweight.
Chimaev won the fight by decision, but Usman gave him all he could handle and might well have won the fight if he'd had more than 10 days to prepare.
That fight has left Chimaev, 29, in a tough spot. While he is one of the biggest names in the middleweight division, he has yet to beat anyone in the Top 15, and he's unlikely to get a title shot until that happens.
Who better to match him up with than Strickland? While the 32-year-old is way higher up the rankings than Chimaev, he would be hard-pressed not to accept the fight, as the Russian is one of the most hyped fighters on the roster today. He's just the kind of opponent who could put Strickland right back in the title conversation.
Both the buildup and the action itself would be extremely entertaining, and the fight could easily co-headline a PPV—perhaps even the same card Du Plessis and Adesanya fight on.
