The UFC’s middleweight champion has had a very different path to the top compared to his next opponent.
Dricus du Plessis has clearly had Khamzat Chimaev in his sights for some time ahead of their eventual meeting at UFC 319.
Both men have achieved a lot of success inside the Octagon but their trajectories have been very different.
Chimaev has made a point of taking precautions ahead of August 16 to ensure that he gets to fight night healthy, with previous health issues slowing his momentum somewhat.
When the undefeated phenom first arrived in the UFC, he quickly skyrocketed to become one of the promotion’s most exciting contenders, which led to some bold claims.
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Dricus du Plessis disregards the hype that had some believing Khamzat Chimaev was championship level on his debut
After Khamzat Chimaev first won his first few fights inside the Octagon, there was almost a sense of inevitability surrounding him.
He hadn’t fought a top contender at welterweight or middleweight yet but he was already being spoken about as a potential future champion who could become a massive star.
This narrative somewhat changed following his fights with the likes of Gilbert Burns and Kamaru Usman where two high-level opponents were able to pose Chimaev a lot more questions.
In a recent interview with New York Post Sports, Dricus du Plessis was asked about the hype that surrounded his next opponent when he first arrived in the UFC.
‘Stillknocks’ responded to the feeling that Chimaev could’ve gone straight into a title fight when he first signed to the promotion by making reference to the Usman fight at UFC 294 where the scorecards were contentious.
“There’s no way. People are saying if he made his debut, he could have become a champion. There’s no way on earth. Kamaru Usman was a champion at that stage. He fought Usman off the couch on ten days’ notice and that fight could have gone either way in my opinion… If he could have been champion, he would have.”
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Dricus du Plessis took a much steadier approach than Khamzat Chimaev to reach the top
While Dricus du Plessis also put together a win streak that quickly saw him climb to the top of the division, he didn’t receive nearly the same amount of hype as Khamzat Chimaev did.
‘Stillknocks’ admits that while he was already an experienced competitor when he first arrived in the UFC, he benefitted from a more gradual rise, taking a step up in opposition with each outing.
He’s confident he could have reached the top even faster if it wasn’t for issues that were out of his control, but ultimately his goal was to become champion before he became 30, regardless of the path he took to do it.
“No, I needed the time for sure. I mean, I did that climb easily. The reason why, there was a two-year period where I only fought twice, that was because of COVID. I wasn’t allowed to travel… Then I fought three times in seven months… I had big jumps from where I started. I went in five fights from debut to number one contender and on my sixth fight I fought for the belt.”