Dricus Du Plessis’ Homecoming Lined Up With A Huge Stadium

The UFC Middleweight Champion Dricus Du Plessis is in line for a major homecoming in South Africa. 

Du Plessis is coming off a big win as he submitted Israel Adesanya in the fourth round at UFC 305 to retain his middleweight title. It was an impressive win since Adesanya appeared to have turned the tide in the third round before Du Plessis dropped him with right hands and secured the stoppage via a submission. It followed his win over Sean Strickland, which enabled him to become the champion in a split decision.

Dana White confirmed that Du Plessis’ next fight will be in South Africa, with Strickland being one of the leading contenders for that fight. The news is very significant since Du Plessis had ruffled many feathers with his pre-fight comments for the Adesanya fight. He said he would be the first African to return the belts to the region, which irked Adesanya.

Du Plessis’ Homecoming

This is particularly true since Kamaru Usman and Francis Ngannou are African champions. Du Plessis explained his comments and stated he would be the first African residing to do so. He would fulfil that mission as he defeated Adesanya, who has now suffered two losses in a row. The Executive Mayor of Cape Town, Geordin Hill-Lewis, has now hinted at a Du Plessis homecoming with a stadium being prepared. 

“Our engineering teams have already come up with four options, actually, all of which work, but work at different costs and have different pros and cons and have different capacities inside the stadium and so on. All of them would be temporary roofs and not permanent.

“But a couple of the options would allow us to erect, take down, and erect the roof for future events as well. So it gives you some flexibility at the stadium, which is quite nice. We’ve said to the national government, the minister (Gayton McKenzie), that we think we could do it absolutely soon, sometime around March next year, but we would need confirmation quite soon so that we could get cracking,” Hill-Lewis said 

Du Plessis’ Options

There are numerous fights Du Plessis can take. There is a possible rematch with Adesanya, given that it would sell in South Africa. Adesanya is from a Nigerian background, although he left the country during his youth and currently lives in New Zealand. The Strickland rematch has enough of a narrative, particularly since some felt Sean had done enough to secure the win. Du Plessis would have the opportunity to rewrite that narrative and get a decisive victory. 

Alternatively, Du Plessis has an outside chance of facing UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Alex Pereira. The Brazilian indicated that he wanted to come down to middleweight one more time to pick up the belt that he had lost against Adesanya when he knocked him out at UFC 287. The opportunity to travel to South Africa may be very difficult to turn down, leaving Du Plessis with plenty of options.

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