Dricus Du Plessis says ‘no way’ Sean Strickland fight goes five rounds at UFC 297

Dricus Du Plessis has a mind to keep his strategy unchanged when he faces UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland. Du Plessis (20-2 MMA, 6-0 UFC) is set to challenge Strickland (28-5 MMA, 15-5 UFC) for the title in the UFC 297 headliner on Jan. 20 at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto.

A former EFC dual-champion, Du Plessis is banking on his experience in championship rounds to give him an edge, though he asserts that he aims to finish the fight much before that. Du Plessis stated in an interview with My MMA News, “From the very first second of this fight, I’m going to go like I always do. The first opportunity I get, I will finish this fight. My honest prediction, there’s no way we’re going to championship rounds of this fight.”

Finishing all but one of his 20 professional wins, Du Plessis intends to bring that same intensity as he takes on Strickland. Both fighters are coming off of unexpected victories, with Du Plessis stopping ex-champ Robert Whittaker by TKO and Strickland dethroning Israel Adesanya to become champion.

“I think people know it’s going to be an entertaining fight,” Du Plessis said. “I’ve had great performances, and I’ve had not so good performances in my career, in the UFC and out the UFC. There’s fights where even though I won, I wasn’t happy with my performance, and there were (losses) where I performed great. But not one of those performances, good or bad, was not entertaining. I never had an unentertaining fight in my life, and with Sean Strickland, he’s had some fights where it wasn’t that entertaining. … But when you get me and you get Strickland, you get two guys that are not afraid to stand in there and bang. He doesn’t like to fight backwards, and I promise you I’m not fighting backwards.”

For more on the upcoming event, check out MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 297.

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Sarah Foster

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