{"id":54763,"date":"2025-08-08T15:13:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T15:13:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/54763\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T15:13:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T15:13:06","slug":"du-plessis-ready-to-move-up-but-185-needs-to-be-cleaned-out-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/54763\/","title":{"rendered":"Du Plessis ready to move up, but 185 \u2018needs to be cleaned out\u2019 first"},"content":{"rendered":"

Middleweight champion Dricus du Plessis is set to defend his title against Khamzat Chimaev on August 16th at UFC 319.<\/a> It\u2019s the biggest fight the division has to offer, and if he gets past \u201cBorz\u201d there\u2019ll be many calling for him to move up and chase new challenges at light heavyweight.<\/a><\/p>\n

There\u2019s few things better than a champion vs. champion fight, but these days the UFC is awash in belt holders chasing gold in multiple divisions. It makes you appreciate a champ who is willing to stay put and defend their belt against all comers \u2014 which is what \u201cStillknocks\u201d is promising to do if he beats Chimaev in Chicago.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s been the goal, the long term goal is to move up,\u201d du Plessis told the Chicago Sports Network (via Red Corner MMA). \u201cI\u2019m still young in my career, 31 years old is a lot of time left. I\u2019m a firm believer in at least three title defenses — this will be my third — before you move up in weight. And then of course the division needs to be cleaned out, in my opinion, before you move on to the next division.\u201d<\/p>\n

DDP has done a pretty good job of that, having beaten most of the big names at 185 en route to the title<\/a> and a few more as champ.<\/a> But he won\u2019t be satisfied until he fights the next generation of contenders that have just jockeyed their way to the title.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe middleweight division is looking very exciting at the moment,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s a shuffle in the top five. The top five has been the same for many years, and over the last year there\u2019s been three changes. Robert Whittaker being out of the top five for the first time in eight years. And I\u2019ve fought everyone in the top five up until last week. Now there\u2019s two new names in the top five, which means the division is getting alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wouldn\u2019t have made sense for me to stay, but now that exciting fights are happening, I\u2019m always in for the new hungry contenders. So let\u2019s see how it happens, but I\u2019m definitely interested at some point to move up to a new weight class.\u201d<\/p>\n

First he\u2019ll have to defeat Khamzat Chimaev, who is undoubtedly the toughest challenge at middleweight right now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Middleweight champion Dricus du Plessis is set to defend his title against Khamzat Chimaev on August 16th at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,33601,638,82,702],"class_list":["post-54763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54763","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=54763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}