Dricus du Plessis’ career is in a difficult spot after UFC 319.
“DDP” was ragdolled for much of five rounds by challenger Khamzat Chimaev (watch here), coughing up his title after 25 difficult minutes. Du Plessis had a couple of good moments at best. For the vast majority of the fight, he was stuck on bottom and unable to get anything offensive going. Though “Borz” has faced some critique for a passive game plan, it was very dominant work overall.
How can the now-former champion respond? Team “DDP”
is adamant that he can improve his wrestling with three-to-four focused months of work and then return to action. In that case, he could only be a couple wins away from another title shot depending on his opponents.
What if Khamzat is still champion though? According to former UFC champion Quinton Jackson, du Plessis has lost all right to ever call for a rematch with “Borz.” In fact, Jackson argues that du Plessis’ career would be better off if he heads back to Welterweight, where he fought from 2015-2018.
“He just got destroyed,” Jackson said of du Plessis on his podcast. “‘DDP’ shouldn’t even say the word ‘Re’ or ‘Match’ in the same f—king sentence in an interview with all due respect. ‘DDP’ probably needs to go to a different weight class. He probably should drop down. He’s stuck.”
Unfortunately, that’s not much of a solution, as Du Plessis has bulked up quite a bit since 2018. In the extremely unlikely event that “DDP” could somehow hit the 170-pound mark, it would surely be unhealthy, and his performance would undoubtedly suffer.
Realistically, improving du Plessis’ fundamental wrestling skills and then chopping up a contender or two is still his best path to regaining UFC gold. Whether that will be enough to “destroy” Khamzat or even earn a rematch remains to be seen, but it’s better than starvation!
