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Take a look at a chronological history of the UFC middleweight belt.
Dricus Du Plessis picked up the first defense of his middleweight title reign at UFC 305 against former champ Israel Adesanya.
Take a look at a chronological history of the UFC middleweight belt.
As personal as things got with Dricus Du Plessis, the Sean Strickland loss still remains Israel Adesanya’s toughest pill to swallow.
The [autotag]Sean Strickland[/autotag] loss still remains [autotag]Israel Adesanya[/autotag]’s toughest pill to swallow, according to his head coach.
Eugene Bareman praised middleweight champion Dricus Du Plessis (22-2 MMA, 8-0 UFC) for submitting Adesanya (24-4 MMA, 13-4 UFC) in the fourth round of their title fight at UFC 305 in August.
The City Kickboxing coach was pleased with Adesanya’s form and chalked up the loss to fatigue.
“You can’t take anything away from Dricus. He’s got underrated defense, underrated offense,” Bareman said on the “Who The Fook Are These Guys?” podcast. “People are so used to watching some of the prettiest and technical strikers that they immediately discredit other people that don’t look like that blueprint. They fail to see the genius in what they’re doing. It was a very close fight, and at the end of the day Israel fatigued. I’m not sure if Israel’s ever been submitted. I can’t remember.
“That position, Israel’s done that a thousand times and got out of it a thousand times. What causes that is the opponent putting pressure on you, pushes you to a place where you’re fatigued. You know what to do, but your brain’s not working, and your body’s not responding because you’re so fatigued. That’s fighting. That’s what makes it such an interesting sport, is that you’re working at the highest level under all this duress, and sometimes it gets the better of you, and it got the better of Israel.”
Adesanya now has lost back-to-back fights to Strickland and Du Plessis. The Strickland loss stunned many, including Adesanya.
“The Strickland loss, he’ll never get over,” Bareman said. “You just fought badly, and it was unexplainable. It’s intangible. It’s not measurable what caused it. You just go down a rabbit hole of a million things. But the Dricus fight, he was doing well. It was a great contest, and he got outmaneuvered. He got outdone.
“You can figure out exactly what happened, follow the path, figure out went wrong, and it’s very traceable. Those losses are much more easier to figure out rather than the unexplained sort of losses that kind of leave you scratching your head a little bit. So, he’s fine in that respect. Any loss is hard, but trust me this one’s a lot easier to take than the Strickland one.”
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Israel Adesanya’s coach saw positives in his fight with Dricus Du Plessis and believes he could beat any middleweight, including DDP.
[autotag]Israel Adesanya[/autotag]’s coach saw positives out of his fight against UFC middleweight champion [autotag]Dricus Du Plessis[/autotag].
Adesanya (24-4 MMA, 13-4 UFC) was submitted by Du Plessis in their middleweight title fight, which headlined UFC 305 in Perth. Adesanya failed to regain his belt after an 11-month hiatus, but he had his moments before getting stopped in Round 4.
The momentum appeared to swing Adesanya’s way in Round 4, before Du Plessis tagged him with a big combination. Du Plessis (22-2 MMA, 8-0 UFC) capitalized by jumping onto the submission, and City Kickboxing’s striking coach, Mike Angove, praised the champion for his will to win.
“Israel showed that he’s quite capable of getting Dricus out of there,” Angove told Submission Radio. “But Dricus also showed what he showed all along, which is that he’s an absolute dog. He’s always looking for an opportunity to win. He will never give up. He was hurt on multiple occasions in that fight, and you know, he took that victory, and he’s done that again and again and again.
“We’ve seen him in other fights where he’s been on the backfoot, and he’s found a way to win, and he’s shown that indomitable will to win. So, we’ve got to credit him for that. That said, I feel like it was a fight we probably let slip away a little bit. Just a couple of mistakes, but I think those mistakes come from a little bit of fatigue, potentially, and that can be attributable to time out of the game. Just making a few readjustments to what we do with our (strength) and (conditioning).”
Angove wasn’t too discouraged from Adesanya’s performance. He thinks “The Last Stylebender” still has what it takes to compete at the top, despite losing three of his past four fights.
“We know that Dricus has a great back take. He’s got a number of submissions,” Angove said. “He’s very quick to take that back, and that’s something you need to be aware of the whole time, and we made that mistake, and we paid for it. Look, how does he look like he did against Strickland, which to be fair there’s a few issues that led to that.
“We would have been sitting in a different position, but Israel looks like he has the ability to come back and have a resurgence, if you like, in his career. He showed that he’s more than capable of of taking out anyone in that division, including Dricus. And you know, we’ll see him back in the gym very shortly, as soon as he’s back from Africa and looking to plan our next steps.”
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For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 305.
Paddy Pimblett sees Dan Hooker as a potential fight down the line.
[autotag]Paddy Pimblett[/autotag] sees [autotag]Dan Hooker[/autotag] as a potential fight down the line.
Hooker (24-12 MMA, 14-8 UFC) outlasted Mateusz Gamrot in a Fight of the Night effort at UFC 305 in Perth. With the win, “The Hangman” entered the UFC’s top five lightweight rankings, and revealed that the promotion is interested in booking him against former champion Charles Oliveira next.
During a watch-along on his YouTube channel, Pimblett (22-3 MMA, 6-0 UFC) was surprised to see Hooker be that big of an underdog.
“I agree with Gamrot being a favorite. I don’t know about a big favorite – Dan Hooker’s fought a much higher-caliber of fighter,” Pimblett said. “Even though he lost a few, he lost a few to some of the best fighters in the world. I could end up fighting one of these, couldn’t I?”
Right before the scorecards were read, Pimblett accurately predicted that Hooker would get his hand raised. Pimblett, who just entered the 155-pound rankings after quickly submitting King Green at UFC 304, sees Hooker as an exciting fight.
“Fight of the Night so far of what I’ve watched,” Pimblett said. “Let’s see the decision anyway. I reckon Hooker, lad, to be honest … Dan Hooker back in the top five: could be a nice fight for me in the future.”
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For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 305.
After a brutal KO at the hands of Carlos Prates, Li Jingliang is out two months. But one UFC 305 suspension is potentially longer.
Everyone who fought this past Saturday at UFC 305 has been given medical suspensions after their bouts, though several were just for mandatory rest periods.
Of note, Li Jingliang, who suffered one of the most brutal knockouts in recent memory at the hand of Carlos Prates, will be out for 60 days. Plus, Casey O’Neill, who took a decision from Luana Santos on the prelims, has a 6-month suspension unless she gets clearance from a doctor to return sooner.
The event, which took place at RAC Arena in Perth, Australia, was headlined by a middleweight title bout between champion Dricus Du Plessis and former champ Israel Adesanya.
Thursday, MMA Junkie acquired a full list of medical suspensions from the commission at the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries of Western Australia, which oversaw the event. Check out that full list below. It’s important to note fighters can return prior to the conclusion of the full term if they are cleared by a doctor (unless noted otherwise).
[autotag]Jesus Aguilar[/autotag]: 15 days mandatory rest
[autotag]Stewart Nicoll[/autotag]: 30-day suspension
[autotag]Song Kenan[/autotag]: 21-day suspension
[autotag]Ricky Glenn[/autotag]: 30-day suspension
[autotag]Tom Nolan[/autotag]: 30-day suspension
[autotag]Alex Reyes[/autotag]: 30-day suspension
[autotag]Jack Jenkins[/autotag]: 15 days mandatory rest
[autotag]Herbert Burns[/autotag]: 30-day suspension
[autotag]Casey O’Neill[/autotag]: 180-day suspension unless cleared by doctor
[autotag]Luana Santos[/autotag]: 15 days mandatory rest
[autotag]Ricardo Ramos[/autotag]: 30-day suspension
[autotag]Josh Culibao[/autotag]: 30-day suspension
[autotag]Valter Walker[/autotag]: 15 days mandatory rest
[autotag]Junior Tafa[/autotag]: 15-day suspension
[autotag]Carlos Prates[/autotag]: 15-day suspension
[autotag]Li Jingliang[/autotag]: 60-day suspension
[autotag]Jairzinho Rozenstruik[/autotag]: 15 days mandatory rest
[autotag]Tai Tuivasa[/autotag]: 30-day suspension
[autotag]Dan Hooker[/autotag]: 45-day suspension
[autotag]Mateusz Gamrot[/autotag]: 30-day suspension
[autotag]Kai Kara-France[/autotag]: 15 days mandatory rest
[autotag]Steve Erceg[/autotag]: 45-day suspension
[autotag]Dricus Du Plessis[/autotag]: 15 days mandatory rest
[autotag]Israel Adesanya[/autotag]: 30-day suspension
Jan Blachowicz advises Israel Adesanya against a move back up to light heavyweight.
[autotag]Jan Blachowicz[/autotag] advises [autotag]Israel Adesanya[/autotag] against a move back up to light heavyweight.
Adesanya (24-4 MMA, 13-4 UFC) finds himself in a quandary after losing to middleweight champion Dricus Du Plessis by submission in their title fight Saturday at UFC 305 in Perth.
Blachowicz was surprised by Du Plessis’ performance, dubbing his style as awkward.
“It was a very good fight,” Blachowicz told Middle Easy. “I didn’t expect that. I thought Izzy was going to win, but Dricus is tough. He has a very weird style. I don’t know how to say it, very tough, weird style of MMA, but it’s working. He knows what to do, how to fight, and he just uses his style very good. Congratulations to him.”
Adesanya has now lost three of his past four and is unsure what’s next. With not too many lucrative names left for him at middleweight, Blachowicz was asked what he thought of Adesanya moving up to light heavyweight, but he wasn’t fond of the idea.
That’s because Blachowicz welcomed Adesanya to 205 pounds when he was champion, and was able to shut down his dual-champion pursuit when he defeated him by unanimous decision at UFC 259.
“I think he should stay at 185 and do something, but we’ll see what’s going to be his decision,” Blachowicz said. “I’m not in his head. I don’t know what he’s going to do right now. We we’ll see. Maybe he’ll move to 205, but I don’t think so. It’s going to be much harder for him than at 185.”
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For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 305.
Xtreme Couture head coach Eric Nicksick shares his analysis of a potential Dricus Du Plessis vs. Alex Pereira champ-vs.-champ showdown.
Xtreme Couture head coach [autotag]Eric Nicksick[/autotag] thinks [autotag]Dricus Du Plessis[/autotag] would struggle against [autotag]Alex Pereira[/autotag].
Du Plessis (22-2 MMA, 8-0 UFC) welcomed Pereira’s challenge after he submitted Israel Adesanya to retain his middleweight title at UFC 305. Light heavyweight champion Pereira proposed they fight at middleweight, but Du Plessis prefers 205 pounds.
If they did fight at light heavyweight, Nicksick thinks Du Plessis’ striking style would finally catch up to him against Pereira (11-2 MMA, 8-1 UFC).
“So comparison-wise think about what Alex Pereira would do to a guy like Jiri Prochazka, and Jiri is very similar in the way of Dricus in the erratic behavior of the way he throws his punches,” Nicksick told Submission Radio. “I think Jiri is more of a feel fighter where he’s not putting pre-disposed combinations in his head off of these types of reads. He’s just kind of throwing. Whereas Dricus is throwing these things, but he’s also leaving his hands behind in certain positions, right? Like if he’s hitting that switch cross or switch overhand, he’s like one hand’s in the pocket, the other hand is in the pocket when he’s throwing that looping overhand.
“That’s where I think Alex Pereira is elite. I think he sees the holes in the defense. So, Dricus kind of hits those a couple times, and Alex catches that timing. That’s where his counter striking is so great. I think that’s where Dricus will have problems. I don’t think you can have that same type of approach as many times as he did against Izzy as he could against Alex Pereira. It’s like that using the same pickup line at the bar with the same girl over and over and over, and finally she’s like, ‘Fine, here. F*cking here’s my number,’ you know? But after a while you’re like, dude, like, this is not going to work. Like you got to – but all of a sudden it works. You’re like, ‘God damn it.'”
Du Plessis has options for his next title defense but thinks Robert Whittaker would be more worthy of a rematch than Sean Strickland if he can get past Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 308.
Strickland’s head coach, Nicksick, disagrees.
“I think Robert Whittaker is a guy who always is deserving of a title shot, especially when he’s winning the fashion that he is winning,” Nicksick said. “But when push comes to shove, if you’re just comparing the two, the two common opponents. Dricus finished Robert Whittaker, and he arguably won a very close split decision vs. Sean Strickland. Right? So I think the fans want to see that finished. I think Sean has earned that right.”
Strickland was edged out by Du Plessis in their title fight at UFC 297. He has since rebounded with a win over Paulo Costa at UFC 302 and refuses to fight anyone but Du Plessis for the title next.
Nicksick expects another war if they run things back.
“You would love to say like, ‘Oh, we’re going to go in there and smoke this dude,'” Nicksick said. “But Dricus, he’ll look awful and then then he comes back in and does his thing. So, you’ve got to expect a knockdown, drag-out fight, 2-2 going into Round 5. Hey, we’re down to the last five minutes. You know, we’re going to have to dig deep and figure out a way to get this fight. That’s how we have to train. That’s how we have to expect it. It’s going to be to the death.”
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For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 305.
One particular aspect of Dricus Du Plessis’ game impressed Jared Cannonier.
One particular aspect of [autotag]Dricus Du Plessis[/autotag]’ game impressed [autotag]Jared Cannonier[/autotag].
Du Plessis (22-2 MMA, 8-0 UFC) retained his middleweight title with a Round 4 submission of Israel Adesanya (24-4 MMA, 13-4 UFC) in Saturday’s UFC 305 headliner.
Du Plessis continues to surprise people having now beaten former champions Robert Whittaker, Sean Strickland, and Adesanya in a row. Cannonier wasn’t counting Du Plessis out, but enjoyed the full striking arsenal that he displayed.
“I wouldn’t say I was too surprised,” Cannonier told MMA Junkie. “It was one of the results that I envisioned, but it was still a competitive match. I thought Israel looked good having been out for a year. Maybe there may have been a little bit of rust involved. I don’t know. Maybe a lack of sense of urgency when (Du Plessis) was taking his back. But I thought it was a good match. I thought both of those guys looked good.
“Of course, (Adesanya is) one of the best at managing distance and countering and throwing some long strikes and stuff like that, and I thought DDP’s kicks looked really well. His kicks for me were the highlight of this fight – caught Izzy off guard. They were really quick, really strong, and even some of his punches were probably heavier than some people may have given him credit for.”
Du Plessis’ style has often been dubbed as awkward, but Cannonier has his own description of the champion’s approach.
“He seems like a clubber in there,” Cannonier said. “That’s the term that comes to mind when I see him: like a clubber, a big, heavy, strong who knows how to grapple and be heavy, be weighted when he’s grappling you. So, yeah, it was a good fight. Good for him, congratulations to him, he remains the champion, and still. The future of the middleweight division is definitely intriguing. … I can see the effects of his fighting style. He explodes in toward you, but he’s not crashing into you like uncontrollably.
“He’s fast, he’s explosive, he’s strong, and his kicks are really good. It’s mixed martial arts, it’s not just one refined style that’s going to be successful in this game. I think everybody is looking for that aesthetic, and that’s not the game we play. That’s not the game I’m playing. I’m not trying to be pretty in there. I do want my sh*t to be pretty, don’t get me wrong, but it ain’t got to be pretty. It just has to be effective, and his sh*t was effective enough to retain the title.”
Cannonier (17-7 MMA, 10-7 UFC) will look to re-enter the title picture when he meets rising contender Caio Borralho (16-1 MMA, 6-0 UFC) in Saturday’s UFC on ESPN 62 (ESPN/ESPN+) main event at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas.
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For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 305.
What next for the winners and losers outside the UFC 305 main event? We discuss on “Spinning Back Clique.”
A lot went down at UFC 305 outside the championship fight between Dricus Du Plessis and Israel Adesanya.
Last Friday’s UFC pay-per-view event in Australia hosted the return of Kai Kara-France, who finished Steve Erceg in the first round after a year of being outside competition. UFC 305 also saw [autotag]Dan Hooker[/autotag] and [autotag]Carlos Prates[/autotag] shine by picking up impressive wins over [autotag]Mateusz Gamrot[/autotag] and [autotag]Li Jingliang[/autotag], while Tai Tuivasa fell to a five-fight losing skid, among other results.
Should Kara-France get the next title shot at flyweight? What’s Prates’ potential? Where does Tuivasa go from here?
MMA Junkie’s Brian “Goze” Garcia, Matthew Wells, Danny Segura, and host “Gorgeous” George Garcia breakdown some of the key results from UFC 305.
Watch their discussion in the video above and don’t miss this week’s complete episode of “Spinning Back Clique” below on YouTube or in podcast form.
https://youtube.com/live/7LMXg2Uksr4
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For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 305.
Robert Whittaker thinks Israel Adesanya looked in top form at UFC 305, but Dricus Du Plessis was too powerful.
[autotag]Robert Whittaker[/autotag] thinks [autotag]Israel Adesanya[/autotag] looked in top form at UFC 305, but [autotag]Dricus Du Plessis[/autotag] was too powerful.
Du Plessis (22-2 MMA, 8-0 UFC) retained his middleweight title when he submitted Adesanya (24-4 MMA, 13-4 UFC) in Round 4 of their UFC 305 headliner. Whittaker’s most recent loss came to Du Plessis by TKO, and he’s still baffled by how well the South African is able to perform.
“There’s a method to his madness – like, I’m making light of it and making it funny, but the dude is a weapon,” Whittaker said on his MMArcade Podcast. “He’s a true warrior. I can say that firsthand because he beat me right with the same cumbersome, throwing punches. It’s funny: I saw the same moment Adesanya had in his fight that I had in my fight, and it was somewhere in the first round where you think you see the punches, you move out of the way of the punches, and you realize, like, ‘He’s slow.’
“I can see them, like, ‘I’ve got this.’ It’s almost like you’re thinking, ‘This is too easy. I can see everything.’ And then, all of a sudden, he hits you. Then he starts climbing on you when he starts closing that gap a little bit more, like he starts – what, risking it a little bit more – like lunging into his shots, and he closes that inch that you thought you were safe by a little bit. Then there’s the factor of his power.”
After a back-and-forth three rounds, Du Plessis was able to lunge forward and stun Adesanya with a few shots, before jumping on him for the rear-naked choke submission.
Whittaker broke down the fight-ending sequence.
“In that last exchange before the submission, Adesanya took some heavy shots,” Whittaker said. “Adesanya’s got a great chin. He does – b*stard. He took those shots. … Dricus saw that, too – pushed it, got the takedown, and then jumped on the back straight away. Like, good instincts. He said he trained for that transition.
“It looks good, but that’s just a testament to his power because his power is what got him the chance, the opportunity. There’s so much to dissect and so many what ifs, you’d have to ask him. But man, to sum it all up, I think Adesanya looked outstanding. Dricus is just a warrior, and I understand what you need to do to beat him. You need to be ready to leave it all there.”
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For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 305.
