Dricus du Plessis has been flawless inside the Octagon thus far.
Ultimate Fighting Championship’s (UFC) Middleweight champion is set to make his first title defense against Israel Adesanya at UFC 305 in Perth, Australia this weekend (Sat., Aug. 17, 2024). To reach his status as a titleholder, South Africa’s du Plessis won six straight (21-2 overall), which included a third round rear-naked choke of Darren Till in December 2022 (watch highlights).
Despite the loss, Till took to Twitter yesterday (Tues., Aug. 13, 2024) to reveal what he believed would be Adesanya’s path to victory against “StillKnocks.” The champion unsurprisingly found it an amusing thing to post publicly.
“I did hit him hard and he seemed to forget — he said he beat me after two rounds?” du Plessis told mainevent. “I think after the first round the striking was 61 strikes for me and zero to him. Then the second round he had a good round until I took him down and the third round I just out-struck him and took him down, finished him.
“I appreciate it,” he continued. “Darren Till is trying other — I know he got taken down by a boxer in a boxing ring so I’m assuming he’s trying different career paths like coaching. Let’s see how that goes. He should probably mention that trying to defend a takedown or your neck because, you know, he didn’t. Obviously, he knows now what it does, but what’s the guy saying? It was ridiculous.”
Till has fought once in combat sports since he departed UFC after his du Plessis loss. The appearance came in his professional boxing debut against Mohammad Mutie, who he defeated via a second round technical knockout (watch highlights) last month (July 6, 2024).
Ultimately, we’ll find out in the Adesanya fight if Till was right, but he should have taken his own advice if so.
“If you saw it that good, why didn’t you do anything about it? Easy as that,” du Plessis said.
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