The former SA UFC middleweight champion will take time away from the sport to work on chinks in his armour.
While Dricus du Plessis and his team could have wallowed in defeat after their devastating loss of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) middleweight title, his coach is already planning how they can return stronger.
Du Plessis had no answers for undefeated Russian Khamzat Chimaev’s wrestling as he succumbed to a unanimous decision defeat at UFC 319 in Chicago on Sunday.
Du Plessis’ head coach, Morne Visser, has revealed the South African is not interested in an immediate rematch because they have plenty of things to do before they compete for the title again.
“We have got to fix sh** asap. It is going to be a big change to fix things, but we know what to do,” Visser told Submission Radio’s YouTube channel.
“When you have been dominated in such a way, you do not deserve a rematch. If it was a close fight, then maybe.”
‘550 bee stings’
As dominant as the Russian was, Du Plessis took no significant damage.
“Dricus has a couple of stitches on his chin … 550 bee stings, that’s what is was,” chuckled Visser, referring to the number of punches thrown by Chimaev in the fight.
“He took no punishment. It’s sad to lose like that. I don’t mind losing unanimously if there was a proper brawl, but there was nothing.”
Although Visser was gracious in defeat, saying they should have done a lot better, he also felt the referee played his part in making the fight as boring as it was.
“When a fighter like Chimaev throws over 500 punches with only 37 of them being significant, he obviously controlled the tempo, but when the fight is slow, the referee must give warnings and stand the fighters up after three or four warnings,” Visser said.
“That fight was smothered with boredom, and we are also to blame, so hats off to him.”
Visser said they will not be rushing into any fight soon simply because one is available. Instead, they will first fix this chink in DDP’s armour.
“Right now, it doesn’t make sense taking another fight until we have fixed this problem.
“Dricus will take a couple of weeks off now and then I need about 12-15 weeks to sort out this issue, after which we will go straight back into fight camp, so he will be in the octagon early next year,” Visser said when asked when Du Plessis would return to action.
