Former middleweight champion Dricus du Plessis will be looking to rebound from losing the title to Khamzat Chimaev when he steps inside the octagon next. “Stillknocks” recently revealed when he’d like to fight again and the opponent he’d like to face.
“For me, we needed to fix some things, obviously and I spent some time now doing that,” du Plessis told Fight Forecast. “I’ll be ready for April. I would love to be on that April card, the Miami card (UFC 327). There’s no opponent yet. There’s no contract yet. We don’t have any of that. Whoever. Let’s go. I’m ready to go again and get back to my belt as soon as possible. Don’t really matter who it is.”
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Du Plessis won the 185-pound championship at UFC 297 in January 2024 by defeating then-titleholder Sean Strickland via split decision. He successfully defended the belt twice before losing to Chimaev at UFC 319.
Dricus du Plessis wants rematch with Khamzat Chimaev
While du Plessis is willing to face anyone at UFC 327, he knows who he’d like to fight. The South African wants a rematch with the champion despite their UFC 319 title bout being a one-sided dominating grappling performance by Chimaev.
“I would of course love for it to be Khamzat and redeem that loss,” he said. “For me, right now the next fight is the most important fight of my life. And I will win that fight and I will get my belt back.”
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“Fighting Khamzat again is of course what I’m after. Expecting any surprises (in a rematch)? No. There’s not going to be any surprises. I mean, that is the way that he’s going to fight. And if he tries anything different, it will be a terrible night (for him). We all know that, but he did what he had to do to win that belt. We can’t hate on him for that. He did what he needed to do. It’s the rules of the game and he did it. So, saying it’s not fair, it is fair. He did what he had to do. It’s not how I would win my belt, or would like to, but that’s what he did. Now it’s my responsibility to go and fix that to stop him from doing that again and get him to fight my fight,” du Plessis continued.
“It’s always great when you have a guy that comes and fights because that’s my style and it’s what I love to do to entertain, to hear the crowd go crazy. But he knows that and that’s why he went for that style because, and once again I understand that it wasn’t 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’s what I will do … I’ll have my belt back by the end of this year.”
