Dricus Du Plessis lost his UFC Middleweight title to Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 319 in Las Vegas. The five-round contest was controlled by Chimaev’s wrestling, which left Du Plessis unable to create offense.
Coach Questions Referee’s Role in UFC 319
After the fight, Du Plessis’ head coach Morne Visser explained why he felt the referee could have made different calls.
“It’s hard to take a big loss like this on the jaw, but lessons learned,” Visser said. “I think we could have done a lot better, but I also think the ref should have done better. You know what it’s like when you lose or something doesn’t go your way, you always wanna blame somebody else. But I do think the ref should have made that fight a lot more live or a little bit more live.”
The coach felt that Chimaev was able to slow down exchanges and hold positions without being forced to advance.
“[Chimaev] just did enough… He obviously controlled positions very very well, and he just did enough to keep the ref [from] not letting the fight stand up. But I think when it goes that slow for 20 seconds, first warning, second warning, 5 seconds later, third, 5 seconds later, stand the fight up, man.”
The coach also described how the fight unfolded inside the corner. According to him, Du Plessis recognized the difficulty of handling Chimaev’s wrestling style over five rounds.
“Okay, this is the very best he’s got. He just showed us what he can do. He’s going to keep on trying to do that. And I just didn’t think that he will try to do that for five rounds. So, we were communicating between the rounds. I think after a third, I said, ‘Okay, we are three down now. Do you want to take him down?’ And he said to me, ‘Coach, he’s too wet. Um, too slippery.’”
After the loss, questions about a possible immediate rematch quickly followed. The coach was clear that they would not accept one right now.
“I’ve been asked, ‘Do you want to do him a rematch?’ I said, ‘Absolutely not’. Obviously, we’d like to fight him very soon again, but there is no way I’ll take the rematch with us being a little bit behind in our Russian style of wrestling. That is what it is, nothing else. He just knows how to control you on the floor… keeping the fight on the floor and making sure that the ref doesn’t stand it up. That’s all he did. Nothing else. We had more submission attempts and almost success. And, obviously, the stand up, we dominated him.”
Instead of jumping back into camp for another fight, the team wants to focus on improvement.
“In the meantime, we’ve got to fix our sh*t asap, and I know what to do. I know exactly what to do and where to do it. It’s a big change, we’re going to have to do a big move to fix things.”
“Instead of spending time preparing for going to another fight camp to prepare for RDR [de Ridder], I would rather spend that time to fix the problem that we’ve got, and then go into a camp. So, I won’t just take a fight because fights are available. I want to fix this problem, because we’re going to face Khamzat [again] and I want to destroy him this time.”
Dricus Du Plessis began his UFC run in 2020 after a successful career in Extreme Fighting Championship Africa, where he was a welterweight and middleweight champion. He later moved to KSW in Poland, adding further international experience before joining the UFC.
Inside the Octagon, Du Plessis became known for his aggressive striking and strong finishing rate. He earned wins over opponents like Darren Till, Derek Brunson, and former champion Robert Whittaker. In January 2024, he captured the UFC Middleweight Championship by defeating Sean Strickland by split decision at UFC 297 in Toronto.
The loss to Chimaev at UFC 319 ended his unbeaten UFC run, but at just 31 years old, Du Plessis remains a leading name in the division. His coach’s focus now is to close the wrestling gap and prepare for a possible second meeting with Chimaev in the future.
