Du Plessis vs. Adesanya 2 is bound to happen in the future. What better place to hold it than Africa?
Despite being chummy after a hard-fought battle at UFC 305, Israel Adesanya and Dricus Du Plessis are prepared to kill each other in the cage when it’s time to fight again.
According to Du Plessis’ coach Morne Visser, that rematch should happen in Africa. In a new interview with Submission Radio following a fourth round submission win for “Stillknocks,” Visser said Izzy was the only fighter they’d consider when UFC finally pulls the trigger and takes the show to their home country.
“I said to [Adesanya] that I believe that there’s talks about doing Africa or South Africa sometime,” Visser said. “I don’t think it’s going to be too soon. But I said to Izzy that I think the only guy that deserves to fight us in Africa is Izzy. So, it will be a rematch. And the only guys that deserves Africa are the two Africans. The true Africans. Nobody else. So, that’s just my opinion.”
Visser went on to detail how important this win was for Du Plessis.
“This was the biggest fight of Dricus’ career,” he said. “I think if you put Izzy in the top ten of all weight divisions, he’s definitely in there. And we’ve just beat him. So … what a feeling.”
Winning was no easy feat. While the South African coach saw opportunities for Du Plessis to win earlier in the fight, he says the relentless body shots from Adesanya were keeping him from capitalizing.
“He caught us very off guard with those body shots coming forward,” Visser admitted. “He did proper damage with those body shots. So, Dricus had to recover. And at the end of the third, I said to him, okay, I think you’ve got to push. Now, it’s time to go. Beginning of the fourth. And he said he predicted a third-round finish, so we got a fourth. So, I’m happy.”
He’s not so happy about former middleweight champion Alex Pereira suggesting a showdown with Du Plessis at 185. Visser would prefer his guy move up to light heavyweight for that.
“We don’t want to beat him and then he’ll say that he had to go down and was fatigued and whatever,” he explained. “So, no, we’ll go up. And I’m sure that the UFC will be okay with that, going up. If that’s what he said, I know Dricus is game, so we’ll go up. I’m not going to wait for him to come down. We’ll go up.”
Du Plessis has already said he’d fight whoever the UFC says is next. That would be Sean Strickland, who lost a close split decision to Dricus back at the start of the year. No date has been set for this rematch, or for a potential UFC Africa event. But between those big matches and Alex Pereira circling, Du Plessis has a full schedule ahead of him.