TJ Dillashaw to boost cardio to beat Dricus Du Plessis<\/a> on August 17th.<\/p>\n![\"Khamzat](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/GettyImages-2181229398-1024x683.jpg\")
Photo by Chris Unger\/Zuffa LLC<\/p>\n
Whittaker has tough opposition before a potential shot as the in-form de Ridder poses a different threat after his beatdown of Bo Nickal.<\/p>\n
Robert Whittaker predicts \u2018tricky\u2019 fight in favour of Dricus Du Plessis at UFC 319<\/p>\n
During the press conference for the fight, he was asked to break down how he foresees his former foes\u2019 chances in the title bout.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cIt\u2019s tricky, I think the favourite will have to be Dricus.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only thing that I can say with certainty is that Chimaev will get Dricus to the mat, but if Chimaev doesn\u2019t finish Dricus there, I find it hard for him to win.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the longer the fight goes, Dricus is more favourable, Chimaev has outstanding first-round finishes, but every fight that has gone the distance has been close.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The 34-year-old was referencing the Russian\u2019s two fights with Kamaru Usman and Gilbert Burns.<\/p>\n
His bout against Usman was won on a razor-thin majority decision as the Nigerian avoided the usual first-round demolition jobs to give him his most competitive fight to date.<\/p>\n
Reinier de Ridder gives a cold prediction for Robert Whittaker finish<\/p>\n
\u2018Dutch King\u2019 Ridder was not known for his punching finishes until the Nickal win in the second round.<\/p>\n
But the Netherlands fighter is confident he can get the submission finish on the New Zealander this time.<\/p>\n
Speaking to Submission Radio, he said: \u201cI see myself putting a lot of pressure on him, hitting him with some good shots early.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe another knee, maybe some other cool strikes, taking him down and choking him out.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Not only will confidence favour the middleweight contender but his activity could prove a factor in the fight.<\/p>\n
Since his opponent\u2019s last fight, he has fought three times and as recently as May, finishing each one inside the distance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Robert Whittaker still has his eyes on middleweight title glory when he faces Reinier de Ridder on Saturday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,20207,786,4120,785,85,787],"class_list":["post-19216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-dricus-du-plessis","tag-fighting","tag-khamzat-chimaev","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}