{"id":441818,"date":"2026-08-24T07:20:21","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T07:20:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/441818\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T07:20:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T07:20:21","slug":"gregory-rodrigues-wants-dricus-du-plessis-or-khamzat-chimaev-after-ufc-sacramento-win-why-im-going-to-look-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/441818\/","title":{"rendered":"Gregory Rodrigues wants Dricus du Plessis or Khamzat Chimaev after UFC Sacramento win: \u2018Why I\u2019m going to look back?\u2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Gregory Rodrigues is soaring up the middleweight rankings and he\u2019s certain a big-name opponent has to be next.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cRobocop\u201d put on the best performance of his career Saturday, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmafighting.com\/ufc\/506622\/gregory-rodrigues-overcomes-anthony-hernandez-in-brutal-five-round-ufc-sacramento-main-event\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">putting on a complete performance<\/a> against a gritty Anthony Hernandez to win a five-round unanimous decision in the UFC Sacramento main event. It was the fourth straight win for Rodrigues, who called out former 185-pound champion Dricus du Plessis in his post-fight interview.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cDricus du Plessis, where are you, man?\u201d Rodrigues said. \u201cI want you. Let\u2019s go. No. 1 contender to fight for the belt. Dricus du Plessis, I want you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Rodrigues entered UFC Sacramento as the No. 15 middleweight in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmafighting.com\/rankings\/495469\/mma-divisional-rankings-justin-gaethje-finally-reigns-as-lightweight-king\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MMA Fighting Global Rankings<\/a> and is set to make a big jump after defeating the No. 5 Anthony Hernandez (tied with top contender Caio Borralho). The next time the matchmakers come calling, Rodrigues expects to be given a chance to crack the top 3 rather than have to defend his spot.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cWhy I\u2019m going to look back?\u201d Rodrigues said at the evening\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=tofFShfJMsQ\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">post-fight press conference<\/a>. \u201cI just beat the No. 6 in the rankings, tough guy, and I want to go forward. I think Dricus is a good fight or even Khamzat [Chimaev], I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cI don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen with the division, but the division is changing and I want my place right there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Rodrigues is now 11-3 in the UFC, with seven of those wins coming by way of knockout. After going the distance with Hernandez, he answered one of the biggest questions regarding his viability as a title contender, that being whether he could put on a complete performance over 25 minutes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Now that he\u2019s done his part, he expects the UFC to handle the rest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cI love what the UFC does,\u201d Rodrigues said. \u201cThey did amazing job. Hunter [Campbell], Mick Maynard, Dana [White], Sean [Shelby], they did amazing job. So I don\u2019t need to rush. I will take my time, I made my call, I\u2019m going to talk with my managers. I\u2019m going to talk with the UFC and we will see it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gregory Rodrigues is soaring up the middleweight rankings and he\u2019s certain a big-name opponent has to be next.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[1979,121,123,122,18873,152122],"class_list":["post-441818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-latest-news","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}