For Dricus du Plessis, everything went according to plan.
On Saturday, du Plessis successfully defended his UFC middleweight title, submitting Israel Adesanya in the main event of UFC 305. The bout was a back-and-forth battle over the first three rounds, with both men landing shots and Adesanya, for the most part, defending du Plessis’s takedown attempts. But in the fourth round, “Stillknocks” was able to take advantage of a retreating Adesanya to land big shots, score a takedown, and quickly lock in a fight-ending rear-naked choke. And according to the champ, that was mostly the plan.
“He had more heart [than expected],” du Plessis said in the post-fight press conference. “I said I’m taking him out in the third and I got him out in the fourth. I could see in the end of the third he was starting to break down, starting to break down, starting to break down. But there just wasn’t enough.
“But in the fourth round, the story of the fight was — because I knew — look at my game plan. Me and my coaches … looked at what he does and he kept on talking about he’s a new fighter, he’s going to come in there, be different, the old Adesanya. So he’s going to come in there and try and fight me and stop me from going forward, because they know that’s how I fight and that’s his kryptonite. He’s not going to make the same mistake like he did against Strickland.
“So every round, you can at the beginning of that round I was standing my ground, but he was in the middle of the octagon, and he was almost dictating. But if you’re not used to fighting like that, you get more tired, if you’re not used fighting with that kind of pressure. And I didn’t back off. I wasn’t fighting on the outside, I just stood my ground. And every round, [with] around two minutes [left] my coach would shout, ‘Listen, it’s time to go!’ And I would start pushing forward, start pushing forward. That’s when I started getting — every round at the end, I got the success, got the success. And every round, the first bit of the round when he was dictating would be shorter, shorter, shorter. In that fourth round, I landed quite a lot of big shots. The man can take a punch, but you can only take that many.”
Of course, the old adage is that everyone has a game plan until they get hit, and du Plessis acknowledged not everything went perfectly in the fight. “DDP” credited Adesanya for his durability and his kicks in particular, and admitted that he wasn’t planning on a submission finish, it just happened that way.
“I knew, physically, I’m stronger than Israel Adesanya,” du Plessis said. “He is a master at getting back to his feet if you have his back. [Robert] Whittaker had his back many times. How many guys have gotten him down and not been able to do anything with it? So I got him down in the second round, landed a couple of hard shots, and every time he would get back to his feet, I didn’t fight him on it. I just kept control of the hits and landed big shots, because he was so focused on my hands on his hips, he wouldn’t protect his face. Land big shots, maybe they’d create a cut, that was what I was hoping for. Land big, big, hard punches, then get him back down to the ground so he has to do all that trouble [again].
“In that fourth, man was staggered from the blows. I could see when he went down, I landed big shots. I didn’t plan on taking him down. I was actually planning on knocking him out [but] body positioning was just that of, the best thing to do right now is take him down. And I could feel as we went to the ground, he wasn’t resisting at all. He was out of it a little, I got the back, and as soon as I straightened him out, it was over.”
Heading into UFC 305, there was a fair amount of bad blood between du Plessis and Adesanya, stemming from comments made about the nature of being an African champion, but afterward both men were highly respectful of each other. In fact, backstage post-fight, the two shared an embrace as du Plessis gifted Adesanya a jacket and Adesanya raised du Plessis’ hand as the true champ.
The moment garnered a lot of attention from fans, and as he puts his rivalry with Adesanya to bed, du Plessis explained exactly what happened there.
“I never went after his family,” du Plessis said. “I just wanted to make sure — I have parents too. I respect anybody’s parents, so I just went over to him and said after the fight, ‘If it sounded like I was saying anything bad about your parents, that was not the case.’ What I’m saying to you, harden up. If you want to cry about that, so be it. But I will never disrespect your parents. And he said, no, no, no, he understands.
“As a warrior to a warrior, I’m still not [friends] with Israel Adesanya. We are not friends because on a personal level we do not see eye to eye, but warrior to warrior, after spending that time with him in the octagon and what he’s achieved in the sport, it’s no secret, I respect that. And after spending the time with him in the octagon, you can’t not respect that man and what he’s done in the sport. So to give him that jacket was a token, a reminder, a token of appreciation, a thank you for this. It’s a memory for me. It’s such a massive moment in my life, fighting a great fighter like Israel Adesanya.”
