Chael Sonnen Believes Du Plessis Is Similar to Alex Pereira—Warns ‘Poatan’ He’s the Wrong Guy to Mess With

Will ‘Poatan’ jump down to middleweight to fight champion, Dricus du Plessis? Well, that my friends is the million-dollar question lingering in the community. Following the South African’s title defense at UFC 305, Alex Pereira issued a warning and now Chael Sonnen has warned the light heavyweight champion to be wary of the Proteas.

Speaking to his co-host, Daniel Cormier in ESPN’s Good Guy/ Bad Guy podcast, Sonnen reacted to Pereira’s callout, essentially asking the Brazilian to be careful about what he wishes for. He said,

“No, no, no, wrong guy to mess with. In all fairness, whatever Alex (Pereira) is seeing in DDP, Alex should know that’s what we all saw in Alex two years ago.”

Kudos to the UFC veteran for his accurate analogy because even the two-division champion, Alex Pereira, was in DDP’s shoes at one point in his career. But as fate would have it, Pereira outstruck the opposition, laying waste to the division, and cleaning it out before jumping up to 205 lb.

And to his point, Pereira might have a nuke in his left hand, capable of putting any man to sleep but DDP has that dog in him. Add his grappling to the equation and we have a dream match for ages.

In the meantime, another UFC veteran has also dropped in his thoughts on the potential Pereira vs du Plessis bout. Despite the community’s excitement around the same, the former champion simply downplayed the matchup and focused on the fighters’ next outing.

Michael Bisping snubs Pereira vs du Plessis

UFC light heavyweight champion, Alex Pereira’s reaction to Stillknocks’ win spread like wildfire, promising the community a massive fight at middleweight. While Pereira is now a division above the 185 lb category, holding the title with his eyes set on moving upwards to the heavyweight category, he recently revealed that he is game to even move down and compete against the South African.

However, UFC commentator Michael Bisping believes that such a bout will never materialize. Sharing his thoughts on the Brazilian’s callout, ‘The Count,’ during a TNT Sports exclusive, said,

“I think stylistically, (Dricus du Plessis) could be a really tough fight for Alex Pereira. But that doesn’t matter because that fight is not happening. Alex Pereira is fighting Khalil Rountree Jr., which was a booking that I don’t think anyone expected but it’s the one that we’ve got. And stylistically, it’s a fun fight. Dricus is gonna be fighting Sean Strickland.”

Though he thinks the South African is the perfect matchup for a heavy-handed striker like Pereira stylistically, he doesn’t feel like the fight would happen anytime soon. Instead of encouraging a dream money fight, the Englishman focused on the fights to come.