Israel Adesanya struggles to pick Dricus Du Plessis vs. Khamzat Chimaev winner at UFC 319
Du Plessis (23-2 MMA, 9-0 UFC) defends his title against Chimaev (14-0 MMA, 8-0 UFC) in Saturday's UFC 319 (pay-per-view, ESPN, ESPN+) main event at United Center in Chicago.
Adesanya was submitted by Du Plessis in their title fight at UFC 305 last August, when he felt the champion get tired but still push through.
"I've looked at this fight two ways: Khamzat comes out, just grabs a hold of DDP, and just drags him into deep water in the first or second, and finishes him," Adesanya said on his YouTube channel. "Or DDP matches his crazy, matches Khamzat's crazy with his own type of crazy and his willingness to not quit, and then drags Khamzat into deep waters of the third, fourth, or fifth round and gets him out of there. That's how I see this fight going."
Adesanya decided to stick with his latter theory.
"Khamzat showed his hand. He's going to go after him from the get-go," Adesanya added. "But DDP, I think, can weather the storm and probably finish Khamzat later on. Because Khamzat, if it gets to Rounds 3, 4, 5, it's going to be a problem. It probably won't get to Round 5. I say Round 3 or 4, DDP. But if Khamzat is going to win, it's going to be in the first round. It's going to be impressive, it's going to be spectacular, it's going to be violent. I'm going to go with DDP.
"It's good if he's champion, (but) the UFC probably wants Khamzat to be champion because he is a guy that brings a lot of eyes, says it and gets it done type sh*t. But I like having DDP as champion because I still think it's inspiring to a lot of Africans – especially South Africans, as well, like me, Kamaru, and Francis did for the continent as the three kings. He can do that solely as the African champ in the UFC. So yeah, I think he'll get it done. He's just stubborn. I'm going to go Dricus by late TKO."
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