The fight for the ‘real’ African champion is on. Again! To be fair, it will be a fight for Dricus DuPlessis’ UFC middleweight championship as Israel Adesanya will look to reclaim his title.
The UFC is in the process of putting together cards for the second half of the year and PPV announcements are coming in thick and fast. So far, the promotion has PPV events booked until UFC 304 which is set to take place at the end of July.
For Du Plessis, the earliest possible chance to defend his title will probably be in July. The champion already has a date and opponent in mind so why the hold up?
Du Plessis defeated Sean Strickland at the turn of the year at UFC 297. Since then he has been on the sidelines awaiting his next opponent. In his defense, he had suffered some serious injuries during his fight against Strickland.
But now that he is fully healed, the champion has a few questions for the UFC.
“I’ve agreed to the opponent and location so what are we waiting for ?”
I’ve agreed to the opponent and location so what are we waiting for ?
— Dricus Du Plessis (@dricusduplessis) May 20, 2024
In response to his tweet, a fan replied saying,
“I hope you’re fighting my boy @stylebender. The true African champ.”
The champion put the fan in his place by reminding him that Adesanya wasn’t a champion. Not anymore, not while he holds the title.
“You mean contender.”
You mean contender
— Dricus Du Plessis (@dricusduplessis) May 20, 2024
It appears as though Du Plessis has his eyes set on Israel Adesanya. As mentioned earlier, the earliest the fight can be put together will be for UFC 305 which is set to take place in August.
However, at this point in time there are absolutely no reports with a potential date or venue for the fight. Therefore, all we have are the champion’s words to go by.
The two men have been on a collision course for a while now. Therefore it will be interesting to see if the fight actually gets made and when it does inevitably happen, who emerges victorious.
A brief history of the beef between Israel Adesanya and Dricus Du Plessis
Du Plessis initially popped up on the then-champion Adesanya’s radar after he stated that he was more African than ‘The Last Stylebender’. The two men then went back and forth multiple times on Twitter.
After his win over Robert Whittaker at UFC 290, Du Plessis was supposed to take on Adesanya.
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However, since he was not ready on the date proposed by Adesanya and the UFC, it was passed on to Strickland.
‘Tarzan’ then won the middleweight belt and derailed all the plans of a fight between Adesanya and Du Plessis. However, ‘Stillknocks’ took matters into his own hands by winning the 185-pound belt and setting up a superfight against Adesanya.
