Dricus du Plessis Breaks Down the Strategy That Bested Israel Adesanya at UFC 305

Stillknocks” Dricus du Plessis was able to defeat the former titleholder Israel Adesanya to defend the UFC middleweight world championship. The South African and Nigerian-Kiwi had a back-and-forth match in the UFC 305 headliner. Du Plessis broke down the game plan that he and his team used to defeat the expert striker.

Dricus Du Plessis Talks Israel Adesanya – UFC 305

The South African athlete Dricus du Plessis has been on an unbeaten run in the UFC middleweight division. Before taking the title from Sean Strickland, he defeated fighters such as Robert Whittaker, Derek Brunson, also Darren Till, and now we can add Israel Adesanya to the list.

With a background in Judo and amateur kickboxing, Dricus du Plessis is a mixed-style fighter but mainly focuses on his grappling. While he is effective on the feet, the real bread and butter of his game in his top position wrestling. Israel Adesanya is a dangerous kickboxer with superb takedown defense so preparing for this fight is a huge challenge.

Speaking to the media, Dricus du Plessis shared what their game plan was coming into the middleweight title bout. Dricus du Plessis explained:

“So every round, you can at the beginning of that round I was standing my ground, but he was in the middle of the octagon, and he was almost dictating. But if you’re not used to fighting like that, you get more tired, if you’re not used fighting with that kind of pressure. And I didn’t back off. I wasn’t fighting on the outside, I just stood my ground. And every round, [with] around two minutes [left] my coach would shout, ‘Listen, it’s time to go!’

“And I would start pushing forward, start pushing forward. That’s when I started getting — every round at the end, I got the success, got the success. And every round, the first bit of the round when he was dictating would be shorter, shorter, shorter. In that fourth round, I landed quite a lot of big shots. The man can take a punch, but you can only take that many.

“I knew, physically, I’m stronger than Israel Adesanya. He is a master at getting back to his feet if you have his back. [Robert] Whittaker had his back many times. How many guys have gotten him down and not been able to do anything with it? So I got him down in the second round, landed a couple of hard shots, and every time he would get back to his feet, I didn’t fight him on it.

“I just kept control of the hits and landed big shots, because he was so focused on my hands on his hips, he wouldn’t protect his face. Land big shots, maybe they’d create a cut, that was what I was hoping for. Land big, big, hard punches, then get him back down to the ground so he has to do all that trouble [again].

“In that fourth, man was staggered from the blows. I could see when he went down, I landed big shots. I didn’t plan on taking him down. I was actually planning on knocking him out [but] body positioning was just that of, the best thing to do right now is take him down. And I could feel as we went to the ground, he wasn’t resisting at all. He was out of it a little, I got the back, and as soon as I straightened him out, it was over.” [Ht MMAFighting]