Dricus Du Plessis still has his doubters ahead of UFC 319 bout with Chimaev

The instant some athletes ascend to the top of their respective sport, they are immediately accepted as the best in the world or ushered into the pantheon of all-time greats; a championship or multiple massive wins leaving few to question their place amongst the elites.

But there are others that are perpetually nitpicked by doubters — standouts whose resumes are constantly put under the microscope and pulled apart, as the fans and critics that perhaps never saw them reaching the top of the mountain try to figure out how it happened and find ways to detract from their accomplishments.

UFC middleweight champion Dricus Du Plessis lands in the latter category, despite the fact that he’s a perfect 9-0 inside the Octagon heading into his highly anticipated showdown with undefeated challenger Khamzat Chimaev this weekend at UFC 319 in Chicago.

“It’s not him — it’s that people think it’s him, that he’s the guy,” clarified the South African titleholder when asked why this pairing with Chimaev was such a priority to him that he was willing to venture to Abu Dhabi to face the challenger if that’s what it took to make the fight happen.

“My whole career, that’s (all that) I wanted on my resume. I do not want — I don’t have a padded record, and I don’t want that at all. As a champion and coming up, I don’t want the route of having had it easy; I want to fight the best of the best, and right now, Khamzat is that guy. He is the best guy to fight in the division. Everybody in the world thinks that. Nobody is going, ‘He shouldn’t get this title shot.’

“Everybody knows he deserves this title shot, so that’s why I want this fight. I want to beat the best in the world to prove I’m the greatest.”

Generally speaking, the fact that he’ll be the last to make the walk at United Center this weekend and is the guy walking around with the big, shiny belt slung over his shoulder is usually enough to convince fans and critics alike of his greatness, but the combination of his style, who he has beaten in his three championship fights, and the fact that he’ll be standing across the cage from Chimaev this weekend has many people, including oddsmakers, suggesting that the challenger might actually be the one that deserves that mantle, not the champion.

It doesn’t matter that Du Plessis dominated and submitted the most successful middleweight champion of the last decade in Israel Adesanya to secure his first title defence, or that he left no doubt that he was the better man in his rematch with Sean Strickland earlier this year: his approach looks unconventional, there are easy ways to “yeah, but” each of those results, and now he has to contend with an undefeated marauder that many have forecasted to reach the top of the division since he first touched down in the UFC five years ago.

“I guess every title fight, every guy that’s coming up, every next best guy is that guy,” Du Plessis said with a smirk and a quick chuckle. “Every guy that you face as a champion, they’re gonna have their supporters and people are gonna go, ‘This guy is the real deal. This guy is gonna beat the champ.’

“For now, that is (Chimaev) and people think I won’t beat this guy, and the next guy is gonna be the exact same thing where people will go, ‘Now this guy — this guy is something else!’”

The grin on his face widened before he continued.

“That’s how it is, that’s how it works. Every single fight, that’s how I feel. When I had to fight Adesanya, he was the next best guy. When I fought Strickland again, just because the (first) fight was close, people went, ‘He’s the next best guy,’ and I went through it. Now it’s Khamzat. This is how things work and me as a champion, what gets me excited is going out there, shocking the world and building my legacy every time. Getting to that stage of becoming undeniable by fighting the best guys fight after fight after fight.”

It feels strange that people still question Du Plessis’ standing given that he has marched his way to the top of the division without any hiccups and while raising his game in each of his three championship bouts, but some of that comes down to the mystique surrounding Chimaev.

Brandishing a pristine 14-0 pro record with his last eight victories coming under the UFC banner, this weekend’s title challenger set the sport alight when he smashed John Phillips, asked for a next-week turnaround, and then did the same to Rhys McKee when the promotion was operating from Fight Island in 2020. The championship forecasts and critical acclaim for his abilities have only grown since then, with Chimaev silencing any whispers of doubt with his first-round drubbing of Robert Whittaker last fall at UFC 308.

Against that backdrop, one would think that a victory by Du Plessis on Saturday will put an end to any of the criticism or questions about his superiority, but the middleweight champion believes that regardless of how things play out this weekend, the next man up is always going to be viewed as the one that finally unseats the imposter masquerading as the best middleweight in the world.

Not that any of it bothers him.

“I think there is gonna be more like there is now,” answered the 31-year-old titleholder when asked if beating Chimaev would bring an end to the skepticism. “There are still a lot of people that doubt, and I promise you — you would think it’s crazy, but after this fight, there are still gonna be people that say, ‘This guy! This guy!’ about whoever I’m gonna fight next; that’s just how it is.

“It’s never bothered me. When nobody gave me a shot, I went out there and did it. When more people started supporting me, I went out there and did it, and right now, being an underdog again, like so many times before, it makes no difference to me.

“What makes a difference to me is getting there fight night and proving those that believe in me right. I don’t care about proving anybody wrong. I’m there to prove those that believe in me right, and that’s the only thing I care about.”

ELEVATING HIS GAME

Du Plessis heads into his second title defence of the year have won 11 consecutive contests and sporting a sterling 23-2 record overall, having previously beaten one of the two men to date that has gotten the better of him inside the cage.

He earned 20 of those victories inside the distance, and at every turn, he’s continued to show that despite what many consider an unconventional or even chaotic fighting style, he’s tremendously effective and successful, and most importantly, he’s continuing to improve every time out.

“Finding your feet in the Octagon is tough when you move from any other organization to the UFC,” began Du Plessis, who was a two-division champion for the EFC promotion and claimed the KSW welterweight title before dropping it back to Roberto Soldic in their rematch, which still stands as the last time he landed on the wrong side of the results. “And then my route in the UFC was not an easy one.

“I climbed that ladder pretty fast. I went top 20, top 15, fighting a ranked opponent in my third fight, and then top 10, top five, No.1 contender. It was a quick rise and every opponent that I faced was a big step up from the previous one.

“By the time I fought Robert Whittaker, with the surgery, I was starting to find my rhythm, my home in the Octagon,” continued the middleweight ruler, who had surgery in 2023 to repair a breathing impairment in his nose prior to shocking many by running through “The Reaper” at UFC 290 and positioning himself as the top contender in the 185-pound weight class. “Then getting a title shot, that’s a different kind of pressure. Now it’s a five-rounder, and I went the distance in a five-rounder for the first time, passed the third round for the first time in my whole life with the added pressure of a title fight against Strickland.”

The champion explained that winning the title only heightened his resolved, furthered his drive because in addition to needing to raise his game to maintain his place atop the division, he felt an obligation to continue leading by example at Team CIT, showing everyone the kind of work ethic it takes to reach the top of the mountain while simultaneously demonstrating that such success could be achieved from the Pretoria gym.

And while he always envisioned himself reaching this point, Du Plessis acknowledged that thinking you would become a UFC world champion and accomplishing the feat are very different, and the confidence holding the title imbues you with has helped him dramatically elevate his game during the course of his championship tenure.

“Even though I’ve always believed in myself, no one knows,” he said. “You think you’re the best, you think you will be the best, and we believe it, but you don’t know it. Now I know it — I’m champion of the world — and that self-belief became a fact, and when you combine that kind of confidence (with work ethic), it played a big role (in taking things to another level).

“If you look at the first Strickland fight to Adesanya — massive improvement — and then Adesanya to Strickland No. 2 — massive improvement — because I’m feeling more at home and my motivation is through the roof every fight.

“And I’m not close to where I know I can be when it comes to the fight,” added the champion. “In terms of my capabilities, I’m still at a 6.5, maybe seven outta 10 in terms of what I can bring into that Octagon, but a fight like this might just be the one that gets me to the nine or 10 that I need to show I’m the most complete fighter to ever walk this earth.”

A WORTHY FOE, A READINESS TO VENTURE INTO DARK PLACES

As soon as Du Plessis claimed his dominant victory over Strickland earlier this year in Sydney, Australia, he turned his attention to Chimaev, who had cemented his position as the next in line a few months earlier with his first-round submission win over Whittaker where he rearranged the former champion’s teeth.

Though there has often been uncertainty about where the challenger is able to compete and whether he is going to make it to fight night as anticipated, the South African was always confident that the undefeated standout would be his next opponent, even if he wasn’t certain where it was going to take place.

“After the Strickland fight, I knew I was gonna fight Khamzat next. I knew this fight was gonna happen,” he offered. “I didn’t necessarily know it was gonna be in the States, but I knew everything will align and we will fight each other.

“When my camp started, there was never a single moment where I went, ‘What if he doesn’t make the fight?’ And so what if he doesn’t make the fight? I prepared for the 16th of August — I didn’t prepare for an opponent, I prepared for a date.

“The one thing was that I wanted to fight Khamzat,” continued Du Plessis, expanding on his previous statement without prompting. “If he couldn’t make it, it would have been a bummer in the sense of ‘Shit, he couldn’t make it; I’m not gonna fight the next best guy in the division,’ because that’s who I wanna fight.

“The fact that it did come together is amazing, but there was never a single moment of doubt in my head. I had the feeling this fight was going to happen, and I can’t train thinking, ‘Maybe I’m not gonna fight this guy.’ I had to train as hard as I possible could. If he doesn’t show up, the UFC would make a plan.”

As it stands, Chimaev will be the one standing on the opposite side of the eight-sided proving ground this weekend in Chicago, and du Plessis is eagerly looking forward to sharing the Octagon with someone he believes is an elite talent.

“Khamzat is absolutely a special fighter,” Du Plessis said, beginning his assessment of the challenger. “He believes in himself and he goes out there and — he has this aura around him and people are almost scared to engage with him. I think of it like this: people fight him in the way like, ‘If I don’t hit you hard, maybe you won’t hit me hard.’ That’s how I feel people approach him.

“He’s been able to do things to fighters and make it look easy. He has a lifetime of achievements and he’s worked his way to where he is. He’s undefeated for a reason and when you watch him fight, there is no doubt that he is a special fighter.I think his performances speak for themselves and 100 per cent deserving of the hype that he gets.”

But as you would expect, the champion is confident he’ll remain atop the middleweight rankings through the weekend and become the first man to defeat Chimaev, both because the road he took to the top was more difficult, and because if things get bleak and the two men are forced to dig deep, Du Plessis knows he’s comfortable venturing into those gloomy depths in order to pull out another win.

“What makes me the guy to beat him is that I’m the world champion,” Du Plessis added with another smile. “I got into the UFC after him, I had a much better run — my resume is better, 100 per cent — and at the end of the day, I am unbreakable mentally. That’s what makes me better.

“I don’t just say ‘I’m ready to die.’ I know I am. When I get in there, when it comes to ‘let’s go to that dark place and see who loves it there,’ I promise you I’m more at home, and that’s why I’m the champion of the world.”