Dricus Du Plessis has opened up about his lone loss in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, which came against Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 319.
The former UFC middleweight champion admitted that he spent his training camp preparing for fast-paced scrambles, only for Chimaev to adopt a far more conservative approach, which ultimately threw him off.
Dricus du Plessis revisits defeat to Khamzat Chimaev: ‘There was no scramble’
The South African lost to Chimaev in August of last year, giving up nearly 22 minutes of ground control time to “Borz.” Moreover, Chimaev followed the same pattern in every round: putting du Plessis into the crucifix position and occasionally landing short strikes from top position. Speaking to Submission Radio,”Stillknocks” explained how his opponent’s grappling approach took him by surprise.
“It’s a style thing. The way he moved, it’s something that I haven’t seen, haven’t felt, and it wasn’t a strength problem at all,” du Plessis said. “It was just a way that he could get it to a place where we were static. There was no scramble.”
He also revealed that during his training camp, his team focused on preparing for the relentless, fast-paced, and aggressive grappling threats that have defined Chimaev’s previous fights.
“That’s what I was preparing for because if you look at all of his other fights, that exciting, let’s go, going for a choke, he didn’t go for one submission,” he added. “That was what we prepared for, and he was just like, ‘Cool, let’s just lie here and steal people’s money.’”
Eager to return to winning ways and title contention, du Plessis takes on former welterweight champion Kamaru Usman at UFC Oklahoma City on July 18.
