The highly anticipated middleweight title fight between the champion, Israel Adesnaya and the #1 contender, Dricus du Plessis isn’t even official but The Last Stylebender is already talking. After defeating Robert Whittaker at UFC 290 in the best performance of his career, there’s no doubt that the South African is next for the New Zealander. They faced off in the ocatgon after the bout and it seems all but official.
It appears as if the build-up may be quite personal, concerning race and the want to be an ‘African’ UFC champion, but for Adesanya, it is trending towards being more than that. Speaking on his ‘Free Stylebender’ YouTube channel, he stated that he’s going to make du Plessis ‘really feel me. More than my energy, he’ll feel me for real’.
We expect the fight between the two men to take place in Sydney, Australia in September. Du Plessis took very little damage in his UFC 290 fight with Whittaker and fans are hoping that he’ll be able to make a quick turnaround and be ready to face Adesanya for the belt.
We haven’t seen Adesnaya since he emphatically knocked out bitter rival, Alex Pereira in April, finally getting the better of his rival after multiple times of trying across various different disciplines.
As of yet, there are five confirmed bouts for the UFC 293 card in Australia. Carlos Ulberg and Jung da-Un will clash, as will Jack Jenkins and Chepe Mariscal. We have the return of Kai Kara-France, Casey O’Neill and Tai Tuivasa, all of whom are looking to bounce back from losses. Kara-France will meet Manel Kape, O’Neill welcomes Araujo to Sydney and Tuivasa will face off against Alexander Volkov.
