Dricus Du
Plessis worked his way toward the top until only one man stood
between him and the
Ultimate Fighting Championship penthouse at 185 pounds.
The 29-year-old South African will challenge
Sean
Strickland for the undisputed middleweight title when their
five-round confrontation headlines
UFC 297 on Jan. 20 at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto. Du Plessis
enters the Octagon on the strength of a career-best eight-fight
winning streak that now spans more than five years. He has secured
19 of his 20 professional victories by knockout, technical knockout
or submission, giving him a prodigious 95% finish rate.
As Du Plessis moves ever closer to his forthcoming clash with
Strickland, a look at a few of the rivalries that have helped chart
his course to this point:
“Soldier Boy” leaned on his guile and experience to retain the
Extreme Fighting Championship middleweight title, as he choked Du
Plessis unconscious with a third-round guillotine in their EFC 33
main event on Aug. 30, 2014 at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli
International Convention Centre in Durban, South Africa. McLellan
slammed the door 2:12 into Round 3. Champion and challenger pushed
themselves to the brink of exhaustion and beyond in a thrilling
back-and-forth battle. McLellan seized the reins in Round 2, where
he twice achieved full mount, progressed to the back and flattened
out his counterpart before threatening with a series of rear-naked
chokes. Du Plessis managed to survived but only delayed the
inevitable. McLellan struck for a takedown inside the first 15
seconds of the third round, floated between side control and
north-south position, forced a scramble and bit down on the choke.
Du Plessis did all he could to free himself, then lost his grip on
reality. Even in defeat, he showed flashes of the brilliance that
would one day make him one of the top middleweights in the
sport.
Du Plessis laid claim to the vacant Extreme Fighting Championship
welterweight crown and did so in decisive fashion when he put away
van Staden with a guillotine choke in the third round of their EFC
50 headliner on June 17, 2016 at Sun City Resort in Sun City, South
Africa. The end came 3:59 into Round 3. Du Plessis deployed a
hyperactive bottom game to counteract a van Staden takedown in the
first round, then surprised “The Punisher” by bullying him to the
mat in the second. Once there, he attacked the body and head with a
string of sharp elbows. They exchanged takedowns and attempted
brabo chokes to start Round 3, though Du Plessis ultimately gained
the upper hand. He moved into top position, battered van Staden
with kneeling ground-and-pound and cinched the fight-ending choke,
cutting off all possible avenues of escape. It was part of an
eight-fight winning streak that put Du Plessis on the map as a true
person of interest in his native South Africa.
The Croatian marauder exacted some revenge when he punched out Du
Plessis and captured the
Konfrontacja Sztuk Walki welterweight championship for a second
time in the third round of their KSW 45 showcase on Oct. 6, 2018 at
Wembley Arena in London. Soldic drew the curtain 2:33 into Round 3,
a little less than six months after he had bowed to punches from
the South African in their first meeting. Du Plessis probed for
openings with leg kicks and cut loose with intermittent punching
bursts but failed to move “Robocop” off his mark. The stoic Soldic
took a patient and measured approach, picked his spots and cut off
attempted takedowns with an effective sprawl. He dazed Du Plessis
with an overhand left in the third round and pinned him to the
fence with punches and knees before electing to reset in open
space. Soldic then uncorked a clubbing left hook, followed it with
a plunging knee to the body and sat down the Team CIT standout with
another concussive left upstairs. There was no refuge for Du
Plessis, as more unanswered punches fell and prompted the
stoppage.
Du Plessis took his final step toward title contention in the
Ultimate Fighting Championship middleweight division when he put
down
Robert
Whittaker with punches in the second round of their featured
UFC 290 attraction on July 8, 2023 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Whittaker succumbed to blows 2:23 into Round 2. “Bobby Knuckles”
handled his business initially with a clean jab and effective
counters, only to lose his way near the conclusion of the first
round. Du Plessis secured a takedown and paired it with a slashing
elbow strike that opened a serious cut near the former champion’s
right eye. Whittaker was never the same. Du Plessis stunned him
with a straight right in the middle stanza and forced the New
Zealand native to a knee under a barrage of follow-up shots to the
head and body, leading referee
Marc Goddard
to step in to prevent unnecessary damage.