Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC
Dricus Du Plessis was bathing within the villainy.
He strutted across the cage, gestured to a partisan Israel Adesanya crowd like an old-school wrestling heel, and smiled as solely an undisputed champion can smile.
It was becoming. As a result of he’d earned it.
The highly effective South African endured three-plus rounds of exact putting from the previous two-time middleweight king. However simply when it appeared prefer it was slipping away from him, he responded with a sequence of exhausting pictures that drove Adesanya to the bottom and gave Du Plessis the opening for the rear-naked choke that drew a decisive faucet at 3:38 of the fourth.
It was the champion’s first protection of the belt he’d gained from Sean Strickland in January, 4 months after Strickland had dethroned Adesanya.
“He is received a ton of coronary heart, and he does not hand over on himself,” analyst Daniel Cormier stated. “He does not veer. He simply retains preventing.”
And if the post-fight chatter is correct, he may be preventing one other champion subsequent.
The published crew of Cormier, Jon Anik and Dominick Cruz mentioned ex-middleweight champ Alex Pereira’s obvious need to return to 185 kilos, which might arrange a mega-fight between them in some unspecified time in the future in 2025. Pereira has a title protection at 205 kilos on the books later this yr however suggests he can nonetheless make weight in his earlier division.
“I do not Pereira ever needed his middleweight story to finish the way in which it did,” Anik stated, referencing the KO loss to Adesanya that preceded his bounce to 205. “Are you able to think about him and Dricus Du Plessis?”
Du Plessis, by the way, has now crushed former/reigning champions Robert Whittaker, Strickland and Adesanya in succession and is 8-0 within the UFC.
“I simply need to hear ‘and nonetheless,'” he stated. “I do not care concerning the opponent.”