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I will confess to being an unabashed Dricus Du Plessis fan.
He’s not a popular pick for reasons that confuse me a little bit. Not entirely; I totally understand that Du Plessis’ style is the antithesis to aesthetics. If you appreciated Israel Adesanya or Anderson Silva for their precision and technical mastery, I understand being thrown off by Du Plessis’ off-balance charges and stumbling stance shifts.
I also don’t get it though. Du Plessis is a handsome, well-spoken fight-finisher. The guy f—king goes for it every time. 20 finishes in 22 victories is outrageous, and there are quality names all over his record. If you’ve ever complained about stand up point-fighting or wrestling for control rather than offense, he’s your man. “DDP” embodies all the virtues a violence-first fight fan should appreciate.
Generally, it feels like public opinion is slowly shifting. Fight fans don’t fully understand why Du Plessis keeps winning, but his greatness has reached a point of being undeniable. Robert Whittaker and Adesanya are easily the most accomplished Middleweights of the last decade or so, and “Stillknocks” finished them both.
To be the man, you gotta beat the man — Du Plessis has done it two times now. That makes him the man twice over. Smacking around the likes of Strickland, Brunson, Till, and Roberto Soldic in addition to those two wins makes his resume even more ironclad as a highly decorated Middleweight even just one title defense into his reign.
Whittaker has still proven himself elite since the Du Plessis loss. He picked apart Paulo Costa and smoked Ikram Aliskerov to remain at the top of his game. There’s been no fall-off. Adesanya, similarly, looked well-prepared and put together combinations beautifully last night. It was a noticeable step up in performance compared to his title defenses against the likes of Vettori or Cannonier, yet he lost.
Du Plessis is that good.
There’s no longer a need to argue that Dricus Du Plessis is a great Middleweight champion, but I’d like to take another stab at explaining how he does it. There are several standout elements to his game on the physical, mental, and technical end that help explain why he’s so goddamn good at winning, which is all that really matters. I wrote quite a bit about his funky skills in the lead up to UFC 305, so let’s focus on why he was able to defeat Adesanya.
The physical is fairly obvious: Du Plessis may be the strongest man at 185-pounds, and he keeps a remarkably high pace. That strength plays into every punching exchange — curious how Adesanya seemed to stumble a lot in this fight, isn’t it? Almost like Du Plessis’ glancing blows still hurt pretty bad — as well as his grappling control. We’ve see fighters like Whittaker and Vettori take down Adesanya, but nobody at Middleweight has ever been able to keep him down or threaten him from top position.
Du Plessis can. He took Adesanya down twice and nearly scored the rear naked choke twice. Part of that is jiu-jitsu skill, but physical strength certainly doesn’t hurt in overwhelming an opponent on the floor! On the conditioning side of things, Adesanya managed to exhaust himself by punching Du Plessis in the body repeatedly. In a division plagued by athletes who fatigue at the seven minute mark, Du Plessis’ physicality is an absurd advantage.
Mental isn’t that complicated either. Du Plessis has the self-belief and will to win of a champion. The third round didn’t go well for him — though I’d argue he landed more hard shots upstairs than many realize — and he started the fourth by diving for a godawful, exhausting double leg attempt. Fighters break in that type of situation every weekend.
When he stood back up from his failed shot, however, Du Plessis went right back to work and scored the finish a couple minutes later. He does not waver for any reason, be it strikes, scorecards, or fatigue.
The technical aspect is the trickiest of the lot, because there are so many things we could point to that Du Plessis does wrong. Against Adesanya, he over-swung many times to the point that he ended up facing an entirely different direction than the kickboxer. Some of his takedown attempts looked like trips or knockdowns. Unlike the first two areas, Du Plessis is far from being above critique in this realm.
Yet there are really cool quirks and understated smarts in play. I mentioned previously that Du Plessis’ ability to attack all targets is an important aspect to his success, and in this fight, he did that with his left leg alone. Against a 6’4” opponent, Du Plessis threw genuinely threatening lead leg head kicks often. Several of them slammed into Adesanya’s hand and clearly made an impact through the guard.
That same snappy kick went to the body and snuck under the elbow often. Adesanya’s lovely body punching deserves its acclaim, but don’t overlook the impact of a left liver kick beneath a punch. Du Plessis hammered Adesanya’s mid-section with his lead leg, which surely played a part in slowing down Adesanya.
Finally, Du Plessis landed a ton of low kicks here. Set up by going high and to the liver, Du Plessis had more success low kicking Adesanya than anyone outside of Alex Pereira. He spun him around on a couple of occasions, catching Izzy between stances. Again, these low kicks contributed to slowing Adesanya and getting him towards the fence, where he’s more vulnerable to big swings and takedowns alike. In one particularly cool moment, “DDP” blocked a high kick and tried to run through the base leg with sweeping low cut kick.
Du Plessis is objectively a far worse kicker than Israel Adesanya, yet he was able to keep up with Adesanya in the kicking battle because he made the most of his weapons. That’s just one example from this specific fight, but we could make similar points about Du Plessis dropping Whittaker with a jab or beating up Brunson from top position. Du Plessis can turn a small advantage in to a victory, because he plays to his strengths and executes ruthlessly.
That’s why he’s champion. That’s why he was always going to be a champion. His style may be ugly and confusing, but the South African’s rise is the furthest thing from a fluke.
For complete UFC 305: “Du Plessis vs. Adesanya” results and play-by-play, click HERE.