Dricus Du Plessis is detailing why he turned down the deal to combat Israel Adesanya at April's historical UFC 300 occasion.
UFC 300 occurs of Saturday, April 13th, at the T-Mobile Arena in Paradise, Nevada.
Du Plessis (21-2 MMA) is hot off a split-decision triumph over Sean Strickland (28-6 MMA) this previous January at UFC 297. With the triumph, Du Plessis was crowned the brand-new UFC middleweight champ.
The previous champ, Israel Adesanya (24-3 MMA), shared simply recently that he had actually accepted the battle with Dricus Du Plessis for UFC 300, however ‘Stillknocks' camp turned it down.
Speaking on ‘Theo Von's' podcast, Adesanya recommended:
“There's some things that were implied to occur. They summoned me, I'm sure this is out there now … however they summoned me for (UFC) 300 and I resembled ‘yep, let's roll.' Their side didn't desire it. They didn't desire it.”
It was throughout a current discussion with Cameron Saaiman, that Dricus Du Plessis exposed yes, a title defense versus Israel Adesanya was certainly gone over for UFC 300. ‘Stillknocks' went on to discuss what took place (h/t MMANews):
“With the discussions of 300, that would've been a huge battle with me and Izzy. It was on the table, 100 percent, however something individuals do not understand is why would I go and begin a camp when again, hurt, if I am the champ? Taking threats is something, I have been taking dangers, a lot, however why would I run the risk of? I'm the champ now, and I can battle when I'm prepared. I believe Izzy misjudges himself as still being a champ and he's not.”
It's real that it would have been a fast turn-around had Du Plessis accepted the battle, and with injuries sustained in the battle with Strickland back in January, why danger losing his just recently obtained title.
There is little doubt that we will see an Adesanya vs. Du Plessis battle in the future, however not at UFC 300.
Do you concur with Dricus Du Plessis that, as champ, he's now in a position to ‘battle when I'm prepared'?
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