Dricus du Plessis is back to winning ways with a bang and considering his performance on Sunday morning (SA time) against one of the UFC’s legends, Kamaru Usman, he will be hard to stop on his way to regaining his middleweight world title.

Du Plessis won his fight in the main event of UFC Fight Night 281 in Oklahoma, USA, against Usman by unanimous decision after dominating the action from start to finish.

The fight started off quite slow, but by all indications Du Plessis won the first round pretty easily. He lured Usman forward and then hit him at will.

By the second round, the Pretoria superstar was in full control of the action, hurting Usman a few times and probably even missing a chance or two to end the fight.

There was speculation beforehand that Usman – a wrestling specialist – would have to take the fight to the ground if he wanted to have a chance of winning. He tried a few times in the second round, but Du Plessis was simply too strong and parried his attempts.

In the third round, Usman did manage to take Du Plessis to the ground once, but the South African was literally back on his feet like a Jack in the Box, with no chance of pinning him down or forcing a wrestling match.

After the fourth round, Usman’s trainer told him bluntly that he would have to “finish” the fight if he wanted to win. He had taken a lot of punishment until that point and Du Plessis was far ahead on points.

Although Usman gave it his all in the fifth round, he was hit hard by right hooks and kicks with the left foot from Du Plessis a few times early in the round. At one point it looked like his legs were starting to turn to jelly, but he was able to stay on his feet and keep his reputation as a fighter with a very strong jaw intact.

During an interview in the fighting cage directly after the action Du Plessis said that one of the most important aspects of the fight was that he managed to maintain his composure and not become careless every time he hurt Usman with powerful punches and left foot kicks.

“Dricus 2.0 is here and I’m ready to take back my belt as champion,” he said in the cage.

He also complimented his opponent for his toughness and the fact that he was able to endure so much punishment but still managed to finish strong.

“He has the toughest head I’ve ever come across in my career,” Du Plessis emphasized.

By all indications, the chances are good that the world might see a third UFC middleweight title fight between the MMA superstar from Pretoria and Sean Strickland from America later this year or early next year.

In May this year Strickland defeated Russian Khamzat Chimaev, who dethroned Du Plessis as UFC middleweight champion in August last year, to take over the title.

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