{"id":476186,"date":"2026-02-15T09:00:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T09:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/476186\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T09:00:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T09:00:12","slug":"du-plessis-blames-chimaev-for-terrible-fight-wants-rematch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/476186\/","title":{"rendered":"Du Plessis Blames Chimaev for ‘Terrible Fight,’ Wants Rematch"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former UFC middleweight champion Dricus du Plessis<\/a> is blaming Khamzat Chimaev<\/a> for what he calls a \u201cterrible fight\u201d when they met at UFC 319 in August 2025. Du Plessis (record not provided) lost the title to Chimaev (record not provided) by unanimous decision. Now, he’s calling for a rematch.<\/p>\n

Du Plessis is targeting a return to the Octagon at UFC 327 in Miami on April 11, 2026. Speaking with Fight Forecast, Du Plessis stated he would \u201clove to be on that April card.\u201d He added that there is \u201cno opponent yet, there\u2019s no contract yet.\u201d Chimaev has also been considering a move to light heavyweight.<\/p>\n

\"YouTube<\/p>\n

Du Plessis Aims to Counter Chimaev’s Wrestling<\/p>\n

Du Plessis anticipates Chimaev will rely on his wrestling in a potential rematch. He plans to counter it to force his own fighting style. In an interview with Fight Forecast, Du Plessis explained why he felt the fight with Chimaev was terrible and what he needs to do to win in a rematch:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always great if you have a guy that comes and fights because it\u2019s my style and it\u2019s what I love to do entertain, to hear the crowd go crazy. But he knows that and that\u2019s why he went for that style. Once again, I understand that it wasn\u2019t the best fight to watch. In fact, it was a terrible fight to watch, but he did what he had to do to win that title and good for him. My responsibility is to stop him from doing that and that\u2019s what I will do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Du Plessis aims to regain the title before the end of 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former UFC middleweight champion Dricus du Plessis is blaming Khamzat Chimaev for what he calls a \u201cterrible fight\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476187,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,17724,641,5899,638,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-476186","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-dricus-du-plessis","11":"tag-fighting","12":"tag-khamzat-chimaev","13":"tag-mma","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}