Morne Visser makes a case for a Dricus Du Plessis title shot.
Du Plessis (24-3 MMA, 10-1 UFC) beat Sean Strickland twice in UFC middleweight title fights, but lost his belt to Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 319. Strickland (31-7 MMA, 18-7 UFC) then dethroned Chimaev at UFC 328, and is expecting to face Nassourdine Imavov next.
However, Du Plessis' coach thinks otherwise. He doesn't see a need in Strickland and Imavov running things back after Strickland beat him in a short-notice light heavyweight bout in January 2023. Du Plessis returned to the win column by dominating former UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman in July, and Visser thinks either Chimaev or a title shot make sense next.
"I think Sean's got that dialed in," Visser told Fight Forecast.
"He figured Imavov out and Imavov is way too old. I don't want to say stubborn, but he's been a veteran in this sport, so there's no way that he'll change from the previous fight to this fight. He'll just engage and do whatever he needs to do, try to do what did last time, just better, and Sean knows that. Sean is going to capitalize on it. So I think our next fight will be Sean."
Visser broke down what he expects a trilogy bout between Du Plessis and Strickland to look like.
"Sean is very, very evasive," Visser said. "He's got that Philly shell, crazy-weird defense, and we all know his wrestling – he doesn't show it much, but when he does, he's really good. You can't pin the guy down. He's got heavy hips, he knows how to get up, and he'll make you tired if you wrestle him. So this will again be a standup war like the others.
"We've figured out how to fight that Philly shell now, so that's what we will capitalize on. I'm sure if he's clever enough, he'll try to capitalize or try to change the game plan completely around because he's lost against us twice with standup. I'm sure he's going to try to wrestle us, but after the Khamzat fight, it's been a year now. You cannot believe how stupid we were, little mistakes we made that we will never, ever make again."
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Dricus Du Plessis' coach makes case for trilogy vs. Sean Strickland next
