Dricus Du Plessis’ coach is confident they can work on mistakes and get their belt back after UFC 319.
Du Plessis (23-3 MMA, 9-1 UFC) was dominated and outgrappled by Khamzat Chimaev (15-0 MMA, 9-0 UFC) in Saturday’s main event at United Center in Chicago. Du Plessis was never in serious danger of getting finished, but was held down in a crucifix position numerous times throughout the fight.
He had no answer for Chimaev’s wrestling, but Du Plessis’ head coach Morne Visser won’t give up on his star student.
“Watch this space, guys,” Visser told Submission Radio. “You’ve just maybe met the worst, worst losers ever in your life: Me and Dricus, and I’m not sleeping until we’ve got that belt back. I know everybody’s laughing and say, ‘Yeah, Dricus was exposed.’ I’m a bad loser. Dricus is a bad loser. It’s going to take whatever it takes for us to get that belt back – ASAP.
“It’s not going to be a long story. One fight and the belt. That’s us back in the belt. So to all those naysayers, and all the guys who support blanket-style MMA, blanket wrestling, we’re in the real fight game, and we’ll be back again and surprise you of just taking that belt back again.”
Visser isn’t looking for an immediate rematch after admitting that his fighter was dominated on the floor. He acknowledges that there’s work to do in order to stop Chimaev’s suffocating grappling approach, which saw him land 12 takedowns and have a whopping 21 minutes of control time.
“I’ve been asked, ‘Do you want him to do a rematch?’ I said, ‘Absolutely not,'” Visser said. “Obviously, we would like to fight him very soon again, but there is no way I’ll take the rematch with us being a little bit behind in our Russian-style of wrestling. That is what it is – nothing else. He just knows how to control you on the floor. When Dricus punched him, he just wobbled. He just kicked him, he wobbled. That’s why he went straight for shooting.
“When you look at submission attempts and almost landed, it was done by Dricus, not by Khamzat. Khamzat was doing one thing and that’s keeping the fight on the floor, and make sure the ref doesn’t stand it up. … In the meantime, we’ve got to fix our sh*t ASAP, and I know what to do. I know exactly what to do, and where to do it. It’s a big change. We’re going to have to make a big move to fix things. But I mean, if we had an extra minute, that fight would have been ours. So it is what it is, man – sad.”
With a plethora of eager contenders at middleweight, Visser doesn’t want Du Plessis to jump into another fight either. He is keen on making improvements first.
“Instead of spending time to prepare for going to another fight camp to prepare for (Reinier De Ridder), I would rather spend that time to fix the problem that we’ve got, and then go into a camp,” Visser said. “I won’t just take a fight because fights are available. I want to fix this problem because we’re going to face Khamzat, and I want to destroy him this time.”
