Following the results of UFC 319’s main event between Khamzat Chimaev and Dricus Du Plessis, one would ask what lessons Du Plessis and his coach have learnt from this event. Although there hasn’t been any public statement from Du Plessis besides him congratulating Khamzat, his head coach Morne Visser has done an interview with Submission Radio where he discusses the outcome of the fight.
In the interview, Visser makes many absurd claims. We will go through each of the things he said.
- I think the ref should have done a lot better: The referee stood them up twice in positions where the fighting was not stalled. In the first round, Dricus cheated blatantly by grabbing the fence to help his position and hooking his toes into the fence to help him escape the grappling, and he was warned just once by the referee. He goes on to say “The ref should have made the fight more live”. The sport has its rules; it is not the job of the referee to modify them based on his preference for how he thinks an MMA fight should look.
In a previous interview with “Submission Radio”, Visser said
“We want to fight him on the floor, that’s how you prove you are a real champion. It’s MMA, It’s not boxing, It’s not wrestling, it’s not grappling, so you’ve got to fight. If you think you’re better than the other guy as an MMA fight, you’ve got to fight him obviously where you’re good at, but we good everywhere. Dricus can wrestle, grapple, his ground and pound is good.” - I just needed an extra minute at the end there: When MMA is being discussed as a sport, “Hail Mary – Fu” is not one of the disciplines mentioned. Hoping that your fighter can pull a Hail Mary at the end of a fight where they are being dominated is not a winning strategy.
- We are three rounds down now, do you want to take him down? Dricus said, “Coach, he’s too wet.”: It’s not a problem if this was Dricus’ assessment at that point in time, but then it shows a significant skill disparity between him and Khamzat because Khamzat proceeded to take him down again in the fourth round.
- I’ve been asked, do we want to do a rematch, I said absolutely not: Good enough, this is one of the correct things he said. There’s absolutely no way DDP should get a rematch off this performance.
- When Dricus punched him, he wobbled. When Dricus kicked him, he wobbled, Goes on to say that the only almost landed submission attempt was by Dricus: Probably not the same match we all watched, not much comment here. Dustin Poirier’s gilly against Khabib is an almost submission, not what Dricus pulled.
- We’ve practiced everything except the crucifix: This sounds like the crucifix is a punch while standing. You get into the crucifix when you get taken down, side guard, and then a crucifix. If you are not on the ground, you won’t be in a crucifix.
- I would not mind if it was a proper brawl and he lost unanimously: You cannot propose the terms of the match and expect your opponent to go by it. If you want to dictate the pace of the match, or where it takes place; standing or on the ground, you do that in the octagon.
We’ll stop here so we do not get high on the ever-flowing copium of Morne Visser.
The result of the fight shows that DDP had no plans for how to beat Khamzat except hope that Khamzat would fade, and when that did not happen as they had hoped, the fight slipped away as he was pinned to the floor with multiple crucifixes.
Are there any lessons for Dricus from this match? Will he improve? Will he capture the belt again? Those are only questions that time can answer.
