{"id":810934,"date":"2026-07-19T21:38:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T21:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/810934\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T21:38:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T21:38:12","slug":"du-plessis-reflects-on-chimaev-loss-after-ufc-okc-win-my-wrestling-did-suck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/810934\/","title":{"rendered":"Du Plessis reflects on Chimaev loss after UFC OKC win: \u2018My wrestling did suck\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

After nearly a year away from the cage, Dricus Du Plessis returned in top form at UFC Oklahoma City, dominating Kamaru Usman<\/a> across 5 rounds to re-establish himself as a top middleweight and title contender.<\/p>\n

Du Plessis hurt Usman badly in nearly every round, and it was only Usman\u2019s impressive grit and toughness that kept him upright for 25 hard minutes. Through that time, \u201cStillknocks\u201d showed off an improved level of defensive wrestling, shucking off many of Usman\u2019s shots and springing back to his feet after one successful takedown.<\/p>\n

The win won\u2019t completely erase the memory of Khamzat Chimaev laying on top of DDP<\/a> for five rounds at UFC 319,<\/a> but it\u2019s certainly reinvigorated the South African fighter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was definitely in a slump. It wasn\u2019t life-altering \u2014 well, it was life altering,\u201d Du Plessis admitted on the Paramount+ post-show. \u201cI had a couple of weeks where the confidence, how do you stay confident? Because everywhere you go, these days, you\u2019re not only getting bullied at school. You go home and you get bullied on Facebook. You get bullied on social media, everywhere you go. And I have to thank, firstly, my parents, my brothers, my team, my coaches, my structure that I have.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then, of course, my religion, turning to God in these situations, that\u2019s the only thing that can get you through that, because no person can make you feel better, because nobody understands what you are going through. And I found my strength there once again, and I had to get up. There was there\u2019s so many South Africans, especially kids, that look up to me and go, \u2018Look what he\u2019s done.\u2019 It\u2019s bigger than me. I can\u2019t go lie down.\u201d<\/p>\n

After getting emotional talking about his team and God, Dricus smiled.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love a challenge,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd, you know, after that [last] fight, my wrestling did suck. I looked at that and I\u2019m like, \u2018You suck, bro. What are you doing?\u2019 \u2026 It\u2019s my fault. You have to take that responsibility, and we as a team took that responsibility, and we fixed that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I could go out there tonight and strike, not because we worked on the striking, because I had all the confidence in the world that I won\u2019t get taken down. And if I did, I would get back up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After nearly a year away from the cage, Dricus Du Plessis returned in top form at UFC Oklahoma…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":809887,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85,1396],"class_list":["post-810934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810934","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=810934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}