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Dricus Du Plessis' coach fully expects Kamaru Usman to wrestle at UFC Fight Night 281 – and that's what he wants.
Former UFC middleweight champion Du Plessis (23-3 MMA, 9-1 UFC) meets Usman (21-4 MMA, 16-3 UFC) in Saturday's main event (Paramount+) at Paycom Center in Oklahoma City.
Du Plessis was heavily outgrappled in his title loss to Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 319. Visser is wary of the holes his star student needed to fix, and he plans on showing off those improvements against another standout wrestler in Usman.
"We hope that he wrestles," Visser said on Fight Forecast. "If he doesn't, we will because we need to prove to the world and to the UFC that we have fixed our problem. If the UFC is happy, our next fight will be for the belt, so I think he's going to try to wrestle with us.
"I don't think he's got the balls to stand up with Dricus. We all saw what Dricus did to Khamzat. He clipped him I think two or three times and he almost took his head off. He just wanted to be on the floor and held on to Dricus – never even had one submission attempt."
Du Plessis is a moderate favorite over Usman, who will compete at middleweight for just the second time in his career. Usman is 1-3 in his past four fights – including a close majority decision loss to Chimaev at 185 pounds. Despite Usman's recent run, Visser highly touts the former welterweight champion.
"Kamaru is a much more all-'rounder. His standup is good. His clinch work is OK. His wrestling is very, very, very good," Visser said. "His top control is amazing. On his back, he's very much useless. So let's see. We've got our plans, and we're going to enforce our plans. We're not going to wait."
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Coach: 'I don't think Usman 'has got the balls' to stand up with Du Plessis
Continue reading...
Former UFC middleweight champion Du Plessis (23-3 MMA, 9-1 UFC) meets Usman (21-4 MMA, 16-3 UFC) in Saturday's main event (Paramount+) at Paycom Center in Oklahoma City.
Du Plessis was heavily outgrappled in his title loss to Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 319. Visser is wary of the holes his star student needed to fix, and he plans on showing off those improvements against another standout wrestler in Usman.
"We hope that he wrestles," Visser said on Fight Forecast. "If he doesn't, we will because we need to prove to the world and to the UFC that we have fixed our problem. If the UFC is happy, our next fight will be for the belt, so I think he's going to try to wrestle with us.
"I don't think he's got the balls to stand up with Dricus. We all saw what Dricus did to Khamzat. He clipped him I think two or three times and he almost took his head off. He just wanted to be on the floor and held on to Dricus – never even had one submission attempt."
Du Plessis is a moderate favorite over Usman, who will compete at middleweight for just the second time in his career. Usman is 1-3 in his past four fights – including a close majority decision loss to Chimaev at 185 pounds. Despite Usman's recent run, Visser highly touts the former welterweight champion.
"Kamaru is a much more all-'rounder. His standup is good. His clinch work is OK. His wrestling is very, very, very good," Visser said. "His top control is amazing. On his back, he's very much useless. So let's see. We've got our plans, and we're going to enforce our plans. We're not going to wait."
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Coach: 'I don't think Usman 'has got the balls' to stand up with Du Plessis
Continue reading...
