Sean Strickland did a Sean Strickland.

There’s really no other way I can describe it. And if you’ve been watching Strickland over the last year, as he’s rocketed back from a career-threatening injury to become one of the breakout stars of the UFC middleweight division, you know exactly what I mean.

For 25 minutes, Strickland stood bolt-upright, flat-footed, and walked after Uriah Hall. He popped him with an insistent jab. He worked his way to his spot, every single time, and let go with sharp one-twos. Everything landed – 186 significant strikes, a new middleweight record. His pulse never quickened. By the end of the fifth round, Uriah Hall had been broken by Sean Strickland’s process, the endless plodding pressure that has become his trademark.

Strickland’s style is unique, methodical, and instantly recognizable. There’s no one else who fights quite like him. I’ve said before that you can set your watch to a Sean Strickland fight. But Strickland showed us a couple different things on Saturday night, ones that haven’t always been apparent since his return last year. First, he wrestled a little bit. He took Hall down four times, his first effort with multiple takedowns since his fight with Court McGee in 2017 – most were of the trip variety. Hall isn’t necessarily the easiest guy to do that against: since 2013, only Antonio Carlos Junior in 2019 managed to take him down more than once in a fight, and that was in a bout Hall ultimately won.

Second, he showed he has the ability to turn it up when he sees a moment. That moment came in a fight-clinching flurry in the third, when he stunned Hall with a short right hand, immediately locked him up, tripped him, and pounced with hellacious ground-and-pound that wasn’t too far off from finishing the fight. We’ve seen Strickland stop guys, but he’s not normally a fighter who really throws with all-out exertion. Seeing him throw those ground strikes with that kind of heat was almost startling with how different it was from what you expect out of Strickland.

Strickland has an extremely effective boxing style, but he’s not a huge puncher. Hall is the kind of fighter who’s never out of it, because he can always land that one big blow. That blow never came on Saturday – although he never appears to be moving quickly, Strickland is exceptionally good at getting in and out when he needs to, never allowing himself to get caught in the pocket for too long. Meanwhile, Strickland overwhelms guys via accumulation of punishment, and by never stopping. We had seen quite a few times that he can come at you at that exact same languid pace for 15 minutes and not break a sweat. Now, we know he can do it for 25… and yup, no sweat.

It’s still difficult to know exactly what to make of Sean Strickland – he’s not supposed to be here right now. Strickland suffered life-threatening injuries in a 2018 motorcycle accident that cost him two years of his career, and returned in October with little fanfare. We don’t know whether he can win a fight where he’s put on the back foot. We don’t know if he can defend a takedown. (I thought Brendan Allen might try, but he just… didn’t.) It still feels like there’s so much we don’t know about this version of Strickland at the top level.

Most of the news cycle around him over the last six months was about him getting into a fight with ADCC champion and training partner Orlando Sanchez that sparked a large debate over gym etiquette. And what’s more, the guy’s just generally weird – whether it’s his comments about wanting to kill someone in the Octagon or saying he’d cook meth if he wasn’t a UFC fighter, it’s tough to tell whether he’s just a troll, an asshole, or a guy with a strange sense of humor.

But despite all the reasons that he shouldn’t be here, Sean Strickland is here. “Here” is the top 10 of the middleweight rankings: he’s currently slotted at No. 8, the highest he’s ever reached. And he plans on staying busy – he’s already lining up a fight for later this year, reportedly against former world champion Luke Rockhold, returning after over two years away.

And it feels weird to say, but that’s a winnable fight for Sean Strickland. There are quite a few in that top 10 that appear winnable just based off the few things Strickland has shown us. It might be a while before we really learn who Sean Strickland is – by that time, he may be on top of the world.