Dricus Du Plessis expects his title tilt with current middleweight world champion Sean Strickland to deliver an early contender for Fight of the Year.
On Saturday (January 20), ‘Stillknocks’ will head to Scotiabank Arena in Toronto determined to cash in on his first shot at UFC gold. Standing in his way will be the reigning and defending 185-pound king, Sean Strickland, who is defending his strap for the first time since scoring it via a picture-perfect performance against Israel Adesanya last year.
Through six fights inside the Octagon, Du Plessis carries with him a perfect record and five highlight-reel-worthy finishes, but many fans remain skeptical about his gas tank, which has depleted fast in past scraps.
Looking ahead to his headliner in The Great White North, ‘DDP’ is confident that his cardio will be ready to go a full five rounds after undergoing a career-changing nose surgery, but he anticipates things to end both early and spectacularly come fight night.
“If this is a Sean Strickland fight of punching really, really, really soft and jab, jab, jab, if that’s the case – which it won’t be (because) I won’t allow it – then I’ll be there in the fifth round making sure I win this fight by decision,” Du Plessis told MMA Junkie on Thursday. “That’s what it takes to become the world champion. But in my honest opinion, this fight is not going the distance. There’s no way. He’s a guy who walks forward. I’m a guy who likes to go forward. I’ve said this and this is one thing. This is the fight game.
“Anything can always happen, but I can promise you this. I’ve never been involved in a boring fight in my life and I promise you I won’t because a boring fight is a choice. I know it’s not going to be boring. This is going to be one of those fights. If he can stay standing, if he can take what I give, this is a Fight of the Year contender, 100 percent” (h/t Yahoo! Sport).
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Two weeks to go before middleweight champ
@SStricklandMMA and
— UFC_Asia (@UFC_Asia) January 7, 2024
Du Plessis erased some of the skepticism surrounding him after he pummeled former middleweight titleholder Robert Whittaker at UFC 290 in July. But one performance in particular still hovers over him, leaving a chip on his shoulder.
“I have one decision in my whole career, and that’s Brad Tavares,” Du Plessis said. “In that fight, we came to a situation where the fight basically, if you look at the punches thrown in that fight, just the punch count, look at that fight again. You’ll see what I’m made of. You look at a guy like Brad Tavares, who is truly one of the most durable guys in the world. When he got to that third round, he definitely won the first round. I won the second. In the third round, the commentators were saying, ‘Dricus is tired. He’s really tired.’
“It doesn’t matter how tired I am. I’m going to do what I need to do to win the fight. … This is the end of Dricus not as a champion. That ends next week, Saturday.”
Will Sean Strickland come out on top in his first middleweight title defense, or will Dricus Du Plessis once again prove the oddsmakers wrong?