{"id":481267,"date":"2026-02-15T08:47:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T08:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/481267\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T08:47:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T08:47:15","slug":"dricus-du-plessis-sets-april-comeback-with-bold-promise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/481267\/","title":{"rendered":"Dricus Du Plessis Sets April Comeback With Bold Promise"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former UFC middleweight champion Dricus du Plessis<\/a> wants to reclaim what he lost in 2025. Stillknocks\u201d in a recent interview discussed when he plans to return to the octagon<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Dricus du Plessis lost his 185-pound championship last year to Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 319<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The South African had no answer to Chimaev\u2019s dominant wrestling, and hence the title bout<\/a> was a one-sided affair in which \u201cBorz\u201d secured a control time of more than 21 minutes and took du Plessis down 12 times.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Dricus du Plessis wants to fight at UFC 327, would love to run it back with Khamzat Chimaev<\/p>\n

It has been nearly six months since Dricus du Plessis\u2019 title loss, and now the former champ has revealed that he wants to fight in April at UFC 327. Du Plessis told Fight Forecast:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be ready for April [UFC 327]\u2026 There\u2019s no opponent yet, there\u2019s no contract yet, we don\u2019t have any of that. Whoever, let\u2019s go, I\u2019m ready to go again and get back to my belt as soon as possible. It doesn\u2019t really matter who it is, but of course, I\u2019d love for it to be Khamzat and redeem that loss. For me right now, the next fight is the most important fight of my life, and I will win that fight, and I will get my belt back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dricus du Plessis added that he plans to run it back with Chimaev ASAP and is aware that the second bout could also go the same way as the first, if he does not make the necessary changes to stop \u201cBorz\u201d from taking him down. He added:<\/p>\n

\u201cFighting Khamzat again is what I\u2019m after. Expecting any surprises? No. There\u2019s not going to be any surprises. That is the way he\u2019s going to fight, and if he tries anything different, it will be a terrible night\u2026 He did what he had to do to win that belt. We can\u2019t hate on him for that\u2026 Now it\u2019s my responsibility to go and fix that to stop him from doing that again and get him to fight my fight\u2026 My responsibility is to stop him from doing that, and that\u2019s what I will do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chimaev, on the other hand, is expected to make the first defense of his title after Ramadan 2026 and will most likely face No. 2 contender Nassourdine Imavov. <\/p>\n

After one successful title defense, \u201cBorz\u201d plans to move up in pursuit of two-division glory and has been repeatedly calling out<\/a> light heavyweight kingpin Alex Pereira. <\/p>\n

Du Plessis, on the other hand, has predicted that by the end of 2026, he will reclaim his lost glory, with or without a rematch against Chimaev. He added:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll have my belt back before the end of this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Check out Dricus du Plessis\u2019 comments below (9:23):<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former UFC middleweight champion Dricus du Plessis wants to reclaim what he lost in 2025. Stillknocks\u201d in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":["post-481267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481267","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=481267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}