{"id":62473,"date":"2025-08-12T12:02:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T12:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/62473\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T12:02:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T12:02:07","slug":"dricus-du-plessiss-mma-debut-saw-a-frantic-referee-yell-at-him-to-stop-after-a-devastating-knee-injury-ended-the-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/62473\/","title":{"rendered":"Dricus du Plessis\u2019s MMA debut saw a frantic referee yell at him to stop after a devastating knee injury ended the fight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dricus du Plessis will hope his fight at UFC 319 will end much less frantically than his first bout after kicking off his MMA career.<\/p>\n

Twelve years after his shocking debut in MMA, Dricus du Plessis<\/a> is taking on the undefeated Khamzat Chimaev<\/a> in the main event of UFC 319<\/a>.<\/p>\n

His UFC Middleweight title will be on the line<\/a>, and the enormity of the clash is a stark contrast to the beginning of the South African\u2019s career.<\/p>\n

\u201cStillknocks\u201d made his debut as a fresh-faced 20-year-old who won the fight, but not in the way he would have wanted.<\/p>\n

\"DricusPhoto by Paul Kane\/Getty ImagesThe referee desperately yelled at Dricus du Plessis to stop after his opponent suffered a knee injury<\/p>\n

Growing up in South Africa, du Plessis trained in judo, kickboxing, and wrestling as he embarked on a journey to make a living fighting in MMA.<\/p>\n

After winning his three amateur fights, he turned professional in 2013 for a fight against Tshikangu Makuebo in the South African promotion, Extreme Fighting Championship.<\/p>\n

Makuebo was 2-1 in his professional career at that point, but his bout with du Plessis would be his final outing in the octagon.<\/p>\n

That is because after just over a minute into the bout, Makuebo caught a kick from du Plessis and tried to take him down. The UFC Middleweight champion decided to go into a full guard, which brought them both down and trapped Makuebo\u2019s leg underneath du Plessis\u2019 body.<\/p>\n

The referee immediately stepped into action. He immediately yelled \u201cStop! Stop! Stop!\u201d and pulled the pair apart, asking Makuebo, \u201cIs your leg fine?\u201d.<\/p>\n

The pain on his face made it apparent that his knee was indeed not fine, and it had been blown out during du Plessis\u2019 takedown on his fellow African.<\/p>\n

The fight was stopped just a minute into the first round, with the future UFC star handed a win on his debut. Sadly, it was not the win he wanted, and Makuebo would never fight again professionally.<\/p>\n

Dricus du Plessis had to deny injury rumors before his fight with Khamzat Chimaev<\/p>\n

As the UFC was trying to book the eventual UFC 319 main event between du Plessis and Chimaev, rumors swirled about a potential injury to the South African fighter.<\/p>\n

There were claims that DDP had broken his shin and would be out for six months<\/a>, putting the fight and his UFC Middleweight title reign in jeopardy.<\/p>\n

However, du Plessis shut down any injury rumors<\/a> with an Instagram post, denying he was suffering from any ailments as he plugged the upcoming announcement for the UFC 319 main event.<\/p>\n

Du Plessis wrote: \u201cOkey so everyone had their opinions and rumours and stories about a shin break and injuries etc,\u201d he wrote on Instagram.<\/p>\n

\u201cI found it all very entertaining, unfortunately none of it is true myself and @ufc already discussed a fight date and opponent, the June fight was never signed I did not pull out of any fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am the champion I know when I fight you as a contender just show up when we tell you to.<\/p>\n

\u201cFight announcement coming soon stay tuned.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pair will finally face off in the UFC 319 main event, with both men fully fit to compete for the UFC Middleweight title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dricus du Plessis will hope his fight at UFC 319 will end much less frantically than his first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,20207,786,785,85,787,37546],"class_list":{"0":"post-62473","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-dricus-du-plessis","11":"tag-fighting","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-319"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62473","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=62473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}