Kamaru Usman knew he was officially fighting Dricus Du Plessis – when the UFC announced it.
Usman was in negotiations to fight former UFC middleweight champion Du Plessis for months, but the fight only became official last week. The pair will meet in the UFC Fight Night 281 main event on July 18 at Paycom Center in Oklahoma City (Paramount+).
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Du Plessis (23-3 MMA, 9-1 UFC) claimed the UFC had to convince Usman (21-4 MMA, 16-3 UFC) to take the fight, but the former UFC welterweight champion has a different version of what went down.
“I’ve just been ready to fight since like February – well, I asked for a fight since then,” Usman said on his “Pound 4 Pound” podcast with Henry Cejudo. “And it was like, ‘Ah, we don’t know.’ We all know which fight that I wanted. I wanted that fight, and so I think there was just a lot of back-and-forth stuff being done, and now we kind of hear all the stories of potentially they were trying to make Ilia vs. Islam and all of these things, and I wanted the Islam fight. So, all of these things behind the scenes kind of dragged on. And then DDP was mentioned, not really offered, but mentioned, and I said, yeah, if that’s – I just need something that gets me to the title. I just want that.
“If you’re not going to give me the title, then give me something that gets me to the title. And so this wasn’t really offered, he was mentioned. I said, OK, let’s do it in Miami. I even asked that. And then it was like, ‘Yeah, Miami’s too soon, he might not be ready,’ and so, it is what it is. So, I thought the fight was off, it wasn’t going to happen, and then there was, like, oh, it’s potentially going to happen. Obviously, there’s some logistics you have to work through when you are at this level and that’s what it was. And then finally, I guess it was announced. I’m like, ‘Well, sh*t, I guess it’s happening, let me go ahead and prepare.'”
For Usman, the lure behind facing Du Plessis is a ticket to UFC dual-champ status. Usman defended his UFC welterweight title five times, second behind only Georges St-Pierre.
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“There’s still a club that I’m not in yet, and I want to be in that club,” Usman said. “I want to be in all the clubs in this sport. …It’s something that I’m still chasing, it’s something that’s still very attractive to me in the sport. So, I’m going to pursue that. Whoever the opponent is, it doesn’t really matter to me at this point because it’s bigger than just a fight.”
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Surprised Kamaru Usman says Dricus Du Plessis initially mentioned, not offered
