{"id":33395,"date":"2025-07-30T21:34:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T21:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/33395\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T21:34:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T21:34:13","slug":"dricus-du-plessis-praises-tom-aspinall-as-next-generation-of-heavyweight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/33395\/","title":{"rendered":"Dricus du Plessis praises Tom Aspinall as \u2018next generation of heavyweight\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dricus du Plessis<\/a> thinks fellow UFC champion Tom Aspinall<\/a> is the future.<\/p>\n

Aspinall officially became the UFC\u2019s undisputed heavyweight titleholder following the retirement of Jon Jones<\/a>, having held an interim title since 2023. With Jones, the previous undisputed champion out of the picture, du Plessis expects Aspinall to have a lengthy run at the top.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first time you saw Tom Aspinall fight, you knew there was something special,\u201d du Plessis told Betway South Africa. \u201cHe\u2019s almost the next generation of heavyweight, in my opinion, where he moves like a middleweight. He\u2019s light on his feet. He can grapple, he can strike, he can wrestle, so I\u2019m really happy for him. I think he\u2019s going to be a great champion and I think he\u2019s going to be a champion for a long time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s a lot of heavyweights on his level right now.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Du Plessis and Aspinall both broke onto the UFC scene around the same time, with du Plessis\u2019 debut taking place on a UFC Fight Island card in October 2020, a date that marked Aspinall\u2019s second octagon appearance. Fast forward to now and du Plessis is weeks away from his third middleweight title defense against Khamzat Chimaev<\/a> at UFC 319<\/a>, while Aspinall defends his title against Ciryl Gane<\/a> at UFC 321<\/a> in October.<\/p>\n

Though Aspinall was unable to secure a unification bout with Jones (who defeated Gane at UFC 285<\/a> to claim a belt vacated by Francis Ngannou<\/a>), his heavyweight r\u00e9sum\u00e9 is undeniably impressive: Eight wins and just one loss, the latter of which came due to a freak knee injury in 15 seconds against Curtis Blaydes<\/a> and that Aspinall avenged in July 2024.<\/p>\n

Amazingly, also featured on that fateful Fight Island lineup was the debut of future lightweight and featherweight champion Ilia Topuria<\/a>. \u201cEl Matador\u201d recently claimed a vacant 155-pound title with a spectacular knockout of Charles Oliveira<\/a> at UFC 317<\/a> and du Plessis thinks he\u2019s already done enough to be immortalized in the UFC Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was literally in my changing room,\u201d du Plessis said of Topuria. \u201cWe were on the same trajectory, winning our titles one month apart. I\u2019m super happy for him. I think he\u2019s one of those special characters who\u2019s going to be a Hall of Famer, no doubt.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnbeaten. He\u2019s the first unbeaten guy to have two titles. I\u2019m super happy for him and I rate him very highly as an all-around fighter, and obviously his striking, power, in knocking out three legends. I think he\u2019s incredible and, in my opinion, one of the best, if not the best in the UFC right now.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dricus du Plessis thinks fellow UFC champion Tom Aspinall is the future. Aspinall officially became the UFC\u2019s undisputed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[10960,793,64,63,30778,30779,786,585,8818,8812,1347,785,1919,1787,30780,30781,85,792,787,1396],"class_list":["post-33395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-as","tag-aspinall","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-dricus","tag-du","tag-fighting","tag-front-page","tag-generation","tag-heavyweight","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-next","tag-of","tag-plessis","tag-praises","tag-sports","tag-tom","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33395","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=33395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}