Du Plessis admits UFC 319 camp targeted a Chimaev who never showed up

Dricus du Plessis has conceded that a fundamental misjudgement in his UFC 319 preparation contributed to his loss against Khamzat Chimaev last August — the only defeat of his UFC career. Rather than the relentless, submission-hunting grappler du Plessis expected, Chimaev arrived with a methodical, positional game that the South African had never encountered.

Speaking to Submission Radio, du Plessis explained that the mismatch was not one of strength but of style. Chimaev spent the fight cycling through the same pattern each round: securing the crucifix position and grinding out short strikes from top control, accumulating nearly 22 minutes of ground control time across the contest without attempting a single submission.

“It’s a style thing. The way he moved, it’s something that I haven’t seen, haven’t felt, and it wasn’t a strength problem at all,” du Plessis said. “It was just a way that he could get it to a place where we were static. There was no scramble.”

The former middleweight champion acknowledged that every hour of camp had been built around the version of Chimaev seen in his earlier UFC appearances — aggressive, chaotic, and constantly hunting finishes.

“That’s what I was preparing for because if you look at all of his other fights, that exciting, let’s go, going for a choke, he didn’t go for one submission,” du Plessis added. “That was what we prepared for, and he was just like, ‘Cool, let’s just lie here and steal people’s money.’”

The candid admission underlines how significantly Chimaev altered his approach for the title fight, abandoning the high-risk scrambling that had made him one of the division’s most feared finishers in favour of a suffocating, points-based strategy.

Du Plessis will look to rebuild his title credentials when he faces former welterweight champion Kamaru Usman at UFC Oklahoma City on 18 July.