MMA’s No. 1 pound-for-pound spot<\/a>. He wants to go out like Jordan, as a bona fide legend of the game he plays. He\u2019s not just basking in the legacy of others \u2014 he wants to continue forging his own.<\/p>\nDu Plessis already beat former UFC champions Robert Whittaker, Sean Strickland (twice) and Israel Adesanya. Regardless, he’s the underdog to the surging bookmakers\u2019 favorite, Chimaev.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is a special fighter \u2026 incredibly good,\u201d du Plessis acknowledged of his challenger.<\/p>\n
Spend any time around du Plessis and it becomes quickly apparent that he has no qualms acknowledging the greatness of his opponents. That’s because he is so confident in his own growth as a fighter and as a champion.<\/p>\n
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It is something his critics have perhaps been slow to recognize. Yes, du Plessis has an awkward style of striking. And though it looks like he\u2019s breathing heavily after only a round, he really possesses one of the best engines in the entire roster. That\u2019s no accident. It\u2019s a product of a lifetime’s work. And it\u2019s work he continues to fine-tune to this day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t care if people say, ‘Dricus isn’t a good champion,’\u201d he explained. \u201cI’m getting paid, I’m defending the belt, twice, and now a third time. I’ve never had a boring fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cUp until a month ago, I had fought everyone in the top five except Nassourdine Imavov. That’s the r\u00e9sum\u00e9. I want to fight the best guys, and I wanted the Khamzat fight so bad.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m getting respect from more people now, but I’m proven, I’m winning. My style is not for everyone, it’s awkward.\u201d<\/p>\n
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It\u2019s awkward on purpose.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something they\u2019ve never seen,” du Plessis said. “So that\u2019s why it\u2019s awkward. How do you defend that? I do things in a way that my coaches and I have been training for. We look at a fighter, ‘This is the way they do it, and this is a better way to do it.’ Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you throw your strikes like everyone else, eventually somebody will be able to figure that out. It\u2019s not that I\u2019m awkward \u2026 I\u2019m different. While people were critiquing, they should be taking notes because they’ll fall behind and have to play catch-up.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Though du Plessis has found his groove as a champion, he grades his current abilities as merely a six out of 10. \u201cI\u2019m far from giving the performance that I know I can,\u201d he pledged.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m chasing the perfect round, and the perfect fight. I think it’s impossible, but it’s worth chasing.\u201d<\/p>\n
It’s a mindset that bears comparison to Jordan, who constantly battled himself to stay elite. For du Plessis, it’s finding that punch-perfect performance \u2014 something he feels may be within himself.<\/p>\n
The comparisons don’t stop there.<\/p>\n
No matter how brutal it may sound to a neutral observer, Jordan’s killer instinct was so fierce that coach Mike Malone once said the shooting guard would “reach into your chest and pull your heart out if he had to win a game.” Du Plessis has that in his soul too, because he’d fight anyone for the championship. He said he even requested the UFC to book the fight in enemy territory, in front of his opponent\u2019s own fans.<\/p>\n
![\"SYDNEY,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/25c61b90-7330-11f0-8d6a-f0c8ce5f31a1.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Dricus du Plessis defends his UFC middleweight title against the undefeated Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 319.<\/p>\n
(Jeff Bottari via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
“I begged them, actually \u2014 I wanted to fight [Chimaev] in Abu Dhabi, fighting in his neck of the woods, like I have been doing with with so many other opponents,” du Plessis said. “I’ve grown quite fond of that.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI\u2019d fight my brother for my title, if I had to, and I\u2019d try to kill him. I promise you that. And he\u2019s my best friend. When we get in the [Octagon], there are no friends. There are no relationships in a fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fortunately, on Aug. 16, du Plessis isn\u2019t fighting a friend nor a relative. He\u2019s fighting Chimaev, someone he doesn\u2019t think much of as a person, but still holds in high regard.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the first time I saw him fight, I knew he was going to be special,” du Plessis said of his challenger.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was never a stage where I thought he was overrated. He\u2019s as good as people think. But I\u2019m better than people think.\u201d<\/p>\n
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If, indeed, du Plessis is better than people think, and he does leave the United Center with a resounding win over Chimaev, then it may well push him higher on the pound-for-pound list.<\/p>\n
Du Plessis lauds UFC lightweight champion Ilia Topuria as the sport’s latest No. 1 for the way Topuria vanquished Alexander Volkanovski, Max Holloway and Charles Oliveira in back-to-back-to-back bouts. \u201cAbsolutely incredible,\u201d du Plessis said of the striker. \u201cMerab [Dvalishvili] is also incredible. People have gotten so used to [Islam] Makhachev winning that they’ve forgotten how amazing he is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Considering the proven exploits of those top three, du Plessis said it will be a tough ask to leapfrog any of them with one win over Chimaev.<\/p>\n
Yet before his career is done, he\u2019ll have \u201cbeen ranked at the top,\u201d regardless. That, he promises.<\/p>\n
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“[Chimaev is] incredibly good,\u201d du Plessis said. \u201cBut jeez, I can’t wait. This win? This is going to be history. I’m going out there and will shock the world once again.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou will see the boogeyman break in there, and realize there will be only one boogeyman in the division.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd that man will be me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dricus du Plessis’ first walk into Chicago\u2019s iconic United Center was a memorable one. The UFC middleweight champion…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51668,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,5184,17724,19451,641,5899,3004,638,82,640,35172],"class_list":{"0":"post-51667","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-chicago-bulls","11":"tag-dricus-du-plessis","12":"tag-du-plessis","13":"tag-fighting","14":"tag-khamzat-chimaev","15":"tag-michael-jordan","16":"tag-mma","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-ufc","19":"tag-united-center"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51667","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=51667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}