UFC middleweight champion Dricus du Plessis has all of the respect on the earth for mild heavyweight champ Alex Pereira, but when the UFC have been to guide a matchup between the 2 titleholders, du Plessis can see an actual world the place he stops Pereira with strikes.
“If I’m speaking about simply the standup exchanges—I’m not combating a kickboxing battle, I’m combating an MMA battle,” du Plessis instructed Submission Radio. “And in a kickboxing battle, You want to have the ability to land combos, you’ll want to land huge punches the entire time, get a man rocked, you get an eight rely, you could have all these variables. The place in MMA, I don’t care who you might be. If I catch you clear with these small gloves, you’re going to go down and I’m going to catch you ultimately.”
Du Plessis captured the middleweight title with a call win over Sean Strickland at UFC 297 this previous January, after which stopped Israel Adesanya in his first title protection at UFC 305 the next August. At mild heavyweight, Pereira has put collectively a Fighter of the Yr marketing campaign with knockout wins over Jamahal Hill, Jiri Prochazka, and Khalil Rountree.
The South African champion understands he has his work minimize out for him, however after watching Pereira’s win over Rountree, du Plessis noticed some issues he may capitalize on.
“Now, I stated it with with Izzy—he stated, I’m too sluggish, I wouldn’t be capable of catch him. Nicely, yeah,” du Plessis stated. “I made a put up lately saying possibly it’s not fairly, however rattling, it’s efficient as a result of I’ll catch you ultimately. After which it’s then it’s an entire totally different story as a result of I’m not participating in a kickboxing battle. I’m punching and I’m kicking, nevertheless it’s not a kickboxing battle. It’s an MMA battle, and once I put these collectively, it’s a special battle.
“So I actually consider that with a man like Alex Pereira, he has energy. I’ve a variety of energy too. The person is… yeah [he has] crisp putting. His putting is unimaginable. That’s why he has the kickboxing résumé. … However we noticed with [the] Khalil Rountree battle, we noticed a variety of issues that [Rountree had] a variety of success [with] in these first two rounds. He actually did.”
Watch du Plessis’ interview with Submission Radio under.
