SUMMARY
- Robert Whittaker believes Dricus du Plessis will defeat Israel Adesanya in the same way Sean Strickland acquired the title at UFC 293.
- Izzy posted a four-word comment on X directed toward Dricus du Plessis.
The upcoming Israel Adesanya vs Dricus du Plessis bout scheduled for UFC 305 has been long awaited by fight fans around the world. This matchup was initially supposed to happen before Dricus pulled out of the UFC 293 fight card for whom Sean Strickland stepped in and won the title.
Dricus ended up fighting Sean for the title during UFC 297 and the latter had his title relinquished. Since then, Dricus was offered to fight Adesanya at UFC 300, however, the champ refused to fight since he wasn’t healthy enough. Right now, the middleweight division is packed with legitimate contenders, and pairing Adesanya and du Plessis was the ideal route.
Robert Whittaker thinks Israel Adesanya cannot handle fighters who push forward
Having fought Israel Adesanya and Dricus du Plessis, Robert Whittaker chimed in on what he believes will happen. He chose Dricus to win over the former champion in the same way Izzy lost the title to Strickland.
He said, “I think stylistically, I think Dricus has a good shot. I think he has a good chance. That’s the kind of direction that I’m leaning because we saw the pressure that Dricus was able to push on Sean, who was a pressure fighter [and] have a lot of success with that. And we saw Sean pressure fight Izzy and have a lot of success with that.”
Sean had great success against Adesanya by pushing forward continuously. Adesanya has a tendency to utilise his length a lot but he has almost never succeeded when his opponents closed the distance. Alex Pereira also used the same technique to corner Adesanya and land repeated strikes to the body.
Israel Adesanya posts a four-word message to Dricus du Plessis via social media
Aside from the obvious thirst to regain the title, Israel Adesanya will be taking this fight against the current champ very seriously. Earlier, Dricus made a few comments suggesting that he was the only true African fighter while Izzy, Francis Ngannou, and Kamaru Usman reigned atop their divisions. Recently, Izzy shared a four-word comment via X saying, “They not like us.”
They not like us. https://t.co/pTzjUpoDmJ
— Israel Adesanya (@stylebender) June 18, 2024
However, looking at how Dricus has performed over his last few fights, he might be a challenge for Adesanya stylistically. Du Plessis is way more aggressive in striking landing more shots with a higher accuracy rate. His ground game is also statistically better while his TD defense might be a bit of a problem. Izzy’s best chance of winning this fight is by keeping it on their feet.