This article contains descriptions of violent activity which could be imitated<\/p>\n
Dricus du Plessis is nonchalant but firm when asked if he has been punished with a Taser-like implement during his training camp before facing Khamzat Chimaev.<\/p>\n
“Absolutely, multiple times,” the South African tells BBC Sport. “I get tased every fight camp.<\/p>\n
“That’s how it is. If you make mistakes constantly – if you repeatedly make the same mistake – you’re getting tased, and that’s it.”<\/p>\n
It was revealed last year that Du Plessis’ coach Morne Visser uses the Taser-like tool on the fighters he trains as punishment for mistakes they make in the gym.<\/p>\n
Footage showed Du Plessis lying face down on his stomach, with Visser tasing the soles of his feet.<\/p>\n
It is an unorthodox and controversial training method – and potentially very dangerous – but Du Plessis credits it with helping him become a UFC champion.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, the 31-year-old will make the third defence of his middleweight title against Russia’s Chimaev at UFC 319 in Chicago, Illinois.<\/p>\n
“I always say this – I’m South African and we are built different. We do whatever it takes to become a champion and this is my coach’s method,” says Du Plessis.<\/p>\n
“Do I like it? No. But that’s his method and if I don’t like it I can leave that gym any time.<\/p>\n
“Did it make me a world champion? Yes, it did. You can’t expect different results doing the same thing as everybody else, it’s not going to work.”<\/p>\n
Du Plessis gives a wry smile before taking a sip of his drink after revealing what it feels like to be tased.<\/p>\n
“It feels absolutely terrible,” he says. “It’s like touching an electric fence – you just know it’s going to be terrible. But it does make that mental note stick.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This article contains descriptions of violent activity which could be imitated Dricus du Plessis is nonchalant but firm…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":["post-72372","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\/72372","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=72372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}