Will Dricus Du Plessis fight Alex Pereira for the UFC light heavyweight title in December?
The South African emerged victorious against Israel Adesanya in the UFC 305 main event. Will Alex Pereira be his next fight?
Dricus Du Plessis is experiencing many things in his professional life, and probably all of them are positive.
The 30-year-old fighter has become one of the company’s most notorious names after his win over Israel Adesanya last weekend at UFC 305.
Du Plessis, who defeated Sean Strickland in his previous fight to become the first South African UFC champion, had a successful middleweight title defense against one of the best mixed martial artists ever in that weight class.
Right after his victory, former middleweight king and current light heavyweight titleholder Alex Pereira took to social media to show his interest in fighting Du Plessis at middleweight. StillKnocks replied saying it would be safer for him to stay at light heavyweight and defend his title with other fighters and didn’t rule out a fight with the Brazilian, although he admitted he wasn’t in his most immediate plans.
Du Plessis vs Pereira: will they fight at light heavyweight in December?
However, in sports things can drastically change from one day to another, and UFC doesn’t seem to be an exception.
Du Plessis’ coach Morne Visser believes the fight between his fighter and Poatan should happen as soon as possible, ideally in December and for Pereira’s belt.
“No, I won’t give him the joy to go down to 185 [pounds]. We’ll just go up. Because when we beat him he’ll say that ‘we had to go down’ and he was fatigued and whatever. So, no. We’ll go up”, he said to Submission Radio.
“I’m sure the UFC will be okay with that. Going up, if that’s what he said, I know Dricus is game, so we’ll go up. I’m not going to wait for him to come down. He’s fighting in October, I really hope the UFC gives us the blessing for this for December. As soon as that”, Visser added.
Although it is an attractive idea, the fight will likely not take place this year. UFC boss Dana White admitted before UFC 305 that Strickland would fight on the DuPlessis vs Adesanya winner, so it seems Du Plessis will have to wait a bit longer to take on Pereira, who already has a title defense scheduled for October against Khalil Rountree Jr.