'I'm going there to kill him'… Dricus Du Plessis breaks down his wild gameplan for potential Khamzat Chimaev fight
11/07/2024 12:51 PM
At UFC 308 this past October, Khamzat Chimaev scored the biggest win of his career thus far, submitting Robert Whittaker in the first round of their highly anticipated middleweight matchup.
The UFC fanbase may have forgotten how terrifying Khamzat Chimaev was considering his lack of action over the past year, however, at UFC 308, the Chechen reminded everyone why he is considered a future champion.
Just minutes into his high-stakes fight against former middleweight king, Robert Whittaker, ‘Borz’ made ‘The Reaper’ tap out after crushing his jaw with a frightening rear-naked-choke.
Dricus Du Plessis confirms that he will likely defend his title at UFC 312
Before Chimaev’s return, the consensus was that Sean Strickland would get the next shot to challenge champion Dricus Du Plessis for the middleweight title, however, because of the impressive nature of Chimaev’s win, it seems to have thrown a cat amongst the pigeons.
UFC CEO Dana White previously stated that Strickland would get the next title shot, despite having only picked up a win over Paulo Costa since his first fight against Du Plessis.
However, with ‘Stillknocks’ being the champion, his say on the matter should seemingly go someway into who is given the next title shot, and he has admitted he would ‘100%’ prefer to fight Chimaev next over Strickland.
Although Du Plessis’ next title challenger is yet to be confirmed, what the champion does know, is that the promotion is seemingly setting him up to defend his title at UFC 312, in Sydney.
“Yeah, I think that’s what they want to do (have me defend at UFC 312), I’ve already agreed and said that I’m more than happy to do that,” Du Plessis told Submission Radio.
“Obviously I think before they made anything solid happen, they had to wait for the Khamzat and Whittaker fight, so right now we’re in a little bit of an (unknown position), we should have an answer soon but I’m more than happy to fight in Australia in February,” Du Plessis continued.
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Dricus Du Plessis breaks down his wild gameplan for potential Khamzat Chimaev fight
With Chimaev showcasing his impenetrable wrestling pressure over his four-year UFC career, he has now seemingly improved his striking game significantly, making him dangerous in all areas of the fight.
With that in mind, Du Plessis has admitted that he doesn’t plan on changing his style to try and crack the unblemished record of Chimaev, and he expects that potential fight to be ‘absolute chaos’.
“(It would be) absolute chaos if you look at our fights. It’s gonna be absolute chaos, I just think, I don’t see him coming in with a different gameplan and me neither, I’m going out there to attack, I’m going there to kill him.
“I’m not going out there to defend Khamzat’s takedowns, I’m not going out there to defend, I’m going to attack, so I think it’s gonna look a little bit different, if you look at the Gilbert Burns fight and the success he had against Khamzat… You don’t win fights by defending, you win fights by attacking,” he continued.
One of the reasons for Chimaev’s continued inactivity is that he is unable to attain a visa to fight in the United States. However, with Donald Trump being re-elected as the President this past Tuesday, that is expected to change.
This will likely give the UFC more options when considering who will fight the South African champion next, and when.
