Dricus Du Plessis coach Morne Visser recently weighed in on potential future matchups for the middleweight champ.
Du Plessis defended his strap with a fourth-round submission win over Israel Adesanya in the main event of UFC 305 in Perth, Australia, on Saturday. While “Stillknocks” and Adesanya had long been beefing over their authenticity as “African champ,” they appeared to bury the hatchet after their fight on Saturday.
Visser says it’s a relief to have peace in Africa. Visser also revealed that he had already discussed a potential rematch with Adesanya when they crossed paths. According to Visser, Adesanya is the most suitable opponent for a potential UFC card in South Africa, which could happen during Du Plessis’ title reign.
“There’s peace in Africa now, which is a good feeling,” Visser told Submission Radio. “I did say to Izzy when I saw him earlier, I said to him that I believe there’s talks of doing [a UFC card in] South Africa sometime. I don’t think that it’s gonna be too soon. But I said to Izzy that I think that the only guy that deserves to fight us in Africa is Izzy. So it’ll be rematch and the only guy that deserves Africa are the two Africans, nobody else.”
Meanwhile, former middleweight champ and reigning light heavyweight champ Alex Pereira is also plotting a move back to 185 pounds to challenge Du Plessis. While Visser is definitely interested in the Pereira matchup, he doesn’t want it to take place at middleweight. Visser would rather have Du Plessis move up to light heavyweight and believes the UFC will give the go-ahead for that wish. With Pereira scheduled to defend his title against Khalil Rountree at UFC 307 in October, Visser hopes “Poatan” can make a quick turnaround by the end of the year.
“I won’t give him [Pereira] the joy to go down to 185 [pounds]. We’ll just go up,” Visser said. “Because we don’t want to beat him and then he’ll say he had to go down and he was fatigued, whatever. So now we’ll go up and I’m sure that the UFC will be OK with it. If that’s what he said, I know Dricus’ game, so we’ll go up. I’m not gonna wait for him to go down, we’ll go up… [Pereira’s] fighting in October, so I really hope the UFC gives us this blessing for December.”
