Dricus Du Plessis plans to “sleep” both Alex Pereira and Sean Strickland and he’s happy to let them decide which one goes night-night first.
After earning a win over Strickland in January to win the UFC middleweight title, ‘DDP’ scored his first successful defense last month, besting Israel Adesanya in Perth via a fourth-round submission victory via RNC.
Immediately following the win, Pereira, who held the 185-pound title before moving up to light heavyweight, revealed his plan to move back down to middleweight one last time to challenge Du Plessis. While a rematch with Strickland is almost certainly up next for Du Plessis, the South African star is more than happy to beat down both fighters.
As for who’s first, he doesn’t really care.
“@AlexPereiraUFC you and you boyfriend @SStricklandMMA can have a domestic dispute on who gets slept first,” Du Plessis wrote on X.
Du Plessis vs. Strickland 2 is on the horizon as Pereira marches toward his third title defense of 2024
With Alex Pereira already booked for his third title defense of 2024 on October 5 and Strickland choosing to sit out until he gets his rematch with Du Plessis, the likeliest scenario is that we’ll see ‘DDP’ vs. Strickland 2 going down sometime in early 2025.
The two first met last January at UFC 297 when ‘Tarzan’ entered the bout as the middleweight champion. The pair delivered an entertaining five-round scrap that saw ‘DDP’ walk away with the win via a very close and highly contestable split decision.
Strickland lobbied for an immediate rematch but was forced to go back down the rankings and get another win first. He did exactly that in June, defeating Paulo Costa at UFC 302.
