But former middleweight champion, Dricus Du Plessis, believes Strickland will \u201csurprise some people\u201d with his performance on Sat. night (May 9) at Prudential Center in Newark. Having faced both \u201cTarzan\u201d and \u201cBorz,\u201d Du Plessis gives the strength advantage to Strickland.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first round is going to tell us so much about this fight,\u201d Du Plessis told Fight Forecast<\/a>. \u201cI know Khamzat is going to get him down. I\u2019ve taken Strickland down so many times. I know Khamzat is going to get him down, but to keep him there? That\u2019s going to be the big question. Because Strickland\u2019s ability to get up, the technique he uses, the strength he has. He\u2019s a strong guy, a lot stronger than Khamzat on a physical level. I think he\u2019s going to surprise some people. If Strickland gets up two or three times in the first round, it\u2019s not going to get easier with the sweat and the fatigue, trying to keep a guy down that gets up. It uses a lot more energy than the guy getting up.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cStrickland has the cardio, we\u2019ve seen that,\u201d Du Plessis added. \u201cOnce Khamzat has to fight Strickland\u2019s fight, I just don\u2019t think he has a chance. Khamzat throws \u2013 he hits hard, he kicks hard, but not scary hard, and he\u2019s kind of predictable. And with a guy like Strickland, some of the best defense in the whole of MMA. You\u2019re not going to catch him with something if you don\u2019t set it up. I don\u2019t think Khamzat has the skills to set that knockout up, but it\u2019s fighting. He can catch you. If Khamzat takes him down in that first round, holds him down, and Strickland cannot get up, it\u2019s Khamzat\u2019s fight. But, I do believe Strickland has every tool to not let that happen and maybe snatch that title away. I think the first round is going to tell us how that fight is going to play out.\u201d<\/p>\n For the rest of the UFC 328 fight card and Paramount+<\/a> lineup click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But former middleweight champion, Dricus Du Plessis, believes Strickland will \u201csurprise some people\u201d with his performance on Sat.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,40762,785,85,266293,1396,1647],"class_list":["post-655930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-328","tag-ufc-news","tag-upcoming-ufc-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655930","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=655930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}