Du Plessis warning he will beat Khamzat<\/a> at his own game.<\/p>\nUFC middleweight predicts a \u2018surprise\u2019 Dricus Du Plessis win, not \u2018sold\u2019 on Khamzat Chimaev<\/p>\n
Whichever fighter wins, they will have to contend with an interesting list of contenders, which could include Anthony \u2018Fluffy\u2019 Hernandez, who fights Roman Dolidze at UFC Fight Night in the Apex.<\/p>\n
The American is looking to extend his seven-fight win streak as he keeps an eye on the 319 title bout.<\/p>\n
When asked by MMA Fighting for his prediction, Hernandez said: \u201cI think DDP is going to surprise the world, man. He\u2019s a big motherf- \u2013 -er. He\u2019s awkward.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe comes forward. He doesn\u2019t get tired. Khamzat gets tired with small guys who were 155ers, who went up to 170.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since the South African won the belt, his two dominant defences against Israel Adesanya and Sean Strickland have made him look unbeatable at 185.<\/p>\n
Even with his lauded submission win over Whittaker, the #10 ranked contender isn\u2019t convinced by \u2018The Wolf\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, I\u2019m still not really sold on him. I know he\u2019s good. I know he beat up Robert Whitaker,\u201d Hernandez said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you can get him to the floor, it usually seems that they have a bad night. That\u2019s just the honest truth of how I\u2019ve seen it play out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Khamzat Chimaev dismisses \u2018weird\u2019 style of Dricus Du Plessis ahead of UFC 319<\/p>\n
A big part of the game plan of the 31-year-old titleholder is his unpredictability in the Octagon.<\/p>\n
He is known for his wild strikes and unorthodox approaches to takedowns, which opponents rarely see coming.<\/p>\n
However, the challenger is unbothered by the claims and doesn\u2019t even think it is as \u2018weird\u2019 as analysts describe.<\/p>\n
On the UFC media day, he said: \u201cEveryone says he has a weird style, very weird \u2013 that\u2019s MMA, MMA style.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think he\u2019s some crazy, weird (fighter), but he does his job. He\u2019s a good fighter. I am better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Khamzat may need to bank on his 58% strike accuracy to not only inflict damage but also keep his opponent at bay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Khamzat Chimaev has impressed fans since his debut in the organisation in 2020. His early dismantling of top…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,20207,786,4120,785,85],"class_list":["post-53401","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"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53401","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=53401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Khamzat](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-2181229394-1024x683.jpg\")
Photo by Chris Unger\/Zuffa LLC<\/p>\n