After more than a year of speculation as the formation of a new UFC rivalry was percolating, Dricus Du Plessis and Israel Adesanya are finally ready to settle the score in the cage as the pair will compete for the middleweight championship in Perth, Australia this weekend at UFC 305.
All the noise in the lead-up to Saturday’s main event, some of it genuine heat and much of it merely standard pre-fight mind games, is far less appealing than the high-level style matchup mixed martial arts fans will get to witness in the anticipated main event.
The middleweight championship has changed hands in four consecutive fights and the two most recent 185-pound title matchups have required all five rounds plus a judges’ rendering.
Will either trend continue at UFC 305 when Du Plessis attempts to make his first successful title defence and Adesanya looks to win the belt for a record third time?
Both stars expound confidence and banter with their opponents in different ways. They also speak different languages in the Octagon with their fighting styles.
Adesanya is a technician and Du Plessis more of a berserker.
Du Plessis told Sportsnet’s Aaron Bronsteter earlier this week he views making his first defence against an accomplished past champion like Adesanya as a “huge honour” and says his UFC 305 opponent is “the best middleweight, other than myself, in the world.”
The two African-born athletes both managed to win UFC gold after beginning their respective time in the Octagon on impressive unbeaten runs.
Following a successful kickboxing career — that ended in 2017 with a knockout loss to two-sport rival Alex Pereira — Adesanya made a seamless transition to MMA. The New Zealander, who is originally from Nigeria, made his UFC debut at UFC 221 in Perth in his 12th pro bout having finished his first 11 all inside two rounds. Adesanya became an interim champion in his sixth UFC appearance and unified the title to become undisputed in his seventh.
Meanwhile, the defending titleholder from South Africa amassed a 14-2 pro record and won multiple international MMA titles before taking his first UFC fight less than four years ago. The 30-year-old Du Plessis also became undisputed UFC champion in his seventh appearance. His seven-fight UFC winning streak is the longest active streak in the division; he has won nine straight overall dating back to 2019.
Du Plessis and Adesanya have four common UFC opponents.
Both hold decision wins over Brad Tavares, both finished Derek Brunson, and both picked up KO/TKO wins over former champ Robert Whittaker; Adesanya also has a separate five-round decision win over “Bobby Knuckles”.
They’ve each gone the full 25 minutes with Sean Strickland within the past calendar year but had different results. Strickland is the last fighter to face both UFC 305 headliners.
Strickland’s trainer, accomplished Xtreme Couture coach Eric Nicksick, is more familiar with Du Plessis and Adesanya than most.
Nicksick recently told UFC.com the “durability and the unpredictable nature of his striking, the erratic rhythm and motion,” is the current champion’s best trait.
In the other corner, he described Adesanya as “a snake-charmer with the feint game.”
If “Stylbender” can get “Stillknocks” flinching and unsure of where and when the next strike is coming, that’s when we could see Adesanya take control of the flow of action.
Adesanya only lands 3.93 significant strikes per minute at 48 per cent accuracy but when he finds the mark he makes it count.
“He lures you in, but what makes him so great is that he’s a sniper sniping off the reads,” Nicksick explained. “He’s catching you off what he sees, what you’re doing when you rear-hand parry or check or pull or something. He’s catching your timing. I think he’s the best at it. Anderson (Silva), Conor (McGregor), he’s in that group. Alex Pereira, too.”
Du Plessis connects on 50 per cent of his significant strike attempts and does so at a high output, landing a middleweight-best 6.49 per minute with a positive strike differential ratio of 1.72, which ranks third in the division.
It will be important for Du Plessis to be disruptive to Adesanya’s rhythm the way Strickland was when he landed a first-round right hand that changed the course of the fight and the trajectory of the entire weight class when he took the title at UFC 293.
Nicksick added he feels key techniques for Adesanya to utilize against Du Plessis will be the lead and rear teep kicks, calf kicks, and even question mark kicks after the teep is established.
Dana White said late Tuesday following the first live Contender Series event at the UFC Apex that Strickland, currently still the No. 1-ranked contender at middleweight, is next in line for a title shot so he and Nicksick will be keeping a close eye on the result and how the fight unfolds.
Du Plessis was consistently bothered by the accurate jab of Strickland in January, a technique the longer Adesanya could look to implement. Du Plessis won a split decision over Strickland despite being outstruck and absorbing a whopping 157 total head strikes.
A key adjustment the Du Plessis corner made that aided in his title eliminator win over Robert Whittaker at UFC 290 last summer was him switching to southpaw and primarily fighting with his right foot and hand forward. He also had success against Strickland by using more frequent stance switches.
Will a poised veteran like Adesanya be stifled by stance switches the same way Whittaker and Strickland were?
Du Plessis managed to successfully mix in takedowns, securing six on 11 attempts against Strickland, which was quite the feat considering no fighter had landed multiple takedowns on Strickland in a fight in seven years and the last to do it was was Kamaru Usman down at welterweight.
It was a determining factor in him getting his hand raised in Toronto, however it’ll be easier said than done to get on top of Adesanya at UFC 305 considering Adesanya’s 80.2 per cent takedown defence success rate at middleweight.
Adesanya is a proven five-round competitor, participating in scheduled 25-minute contests in 11 consecutive outings. Du Plessis has only seen the championship rounds once in his career but it was earlier this year and he did not appear to have any issues with his gas tank as the fight progressed.
Former featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski doesn’t expect a five-round chess match and is instead predicting a resounding return to form by his longtime friend and training partner Adesanya.
“Dricus is very awkward, unorthodox and he’s got awkward pressure, which is very hard for people to deal with, and we’ve seen awkward pressure from Strickland give Izzy problems, but that doesn’t happen to Izzy twice,” Volkanovski said. “I think Israel Adesanya is gonna to put on that type of performance where he gets a crazy finish and that’s saying something because Dricus is no joke.”
One obvious x-factor entering this matchup is Adesanya’s longer-than-usual layoff. He hasn’t fought since losing to Strickland and turned 35 in July.
His City Kickboxing teammate Dan Hooker, who faces Mateusz Gamrot in lightweight action on the UFC 305 main card, recently told Australia’s Submission Radio that Adesanya has healed up certain lingering injuries that apparently had been preventing him from competing as the best version of himself.
“To see him back at 100 per cent and to feel him in the gym and know how scary he is, yeah, Dricus is in for a rude awakening because the guy you saw in the last fight is not the same animal,” Hooker teased.
It is not all too common for a UFC champion to lose their belt and climb back to the top of the mountain once again, let alone multiple times.
Adesanya can become the first three-time champion in UFC middleweight history with a win Saturday and only the second three-time UFC champion ever for a single weight class. Randy Couture was a three-time UFC heavyweight champion during his Hall of Fame career.
Du Plessis can become the first middleweight champ to defend the belt since Adesanya earned his fifth title defence against Jared Cannonier two year ago.