Demetrious Johnson on Dricus Du Plessis and Khamzat Chimaev's keys to victory at UFC 319

USA Today

8 hours ago

Demetrious Johnson broke down the Dricus Du Plessis vs. Khamzat Chimaev fight, then gave his prediction.
Du Plessis (23-2 MMA, 9-0 UFC) defends his middleweight title against Chimaev (14-0 MMA, 8-0 UFC) in Saturday's UFC 319 main event (pay-per-view, ESPN, ESPN+) at United Center in Chicago.
Johnson started out with keys to victory for Chimaev, who's most recent wins have come over former UFC champions Kamaru Usman and Robert Whittaker.
"Key to victory No. 1 for Khamzat Chimaev is he's got to make sure he wins that first round in that first clash," Johnson said on his YouTube channel. "When they come head-to-head in the beginning, and he decides to shoot from way outside of the void, he's got to win that grappling exchange because if he doesn't win that grappling exchange, I think that's going to do something to him mentally. Key No. 2, I hope he worked on if he failed that first clash, because if he didn't work on that, he's going to be straight dog doodoo.
"It's not a lot of keys to victory for Khamzat. It's more about, is he prepared to go to the third round? I mean, he's gone three rounds, but those three rounds he's went against, the Gilbert Burns fight was a back-and-forth war. When he fought Kamaru Usman, I felt that Kamaru Usman kind of slowed down – he was shadow boxing the entire time. Nothing was really going on. We've never seen Khamzat shoot a shot when he desperately has to. We always see Khamzat shoot on his behalf when he wants to."
The former UFC flyweight champion then went onto give Du Plessis' keys to victory, and ultimately picked him to retain his title.
"Key to victory No. 1 for DDP is you have to win that first exchange, as well," Johnson said. "The first clash is always the one that dictates what's going to happen when you fight Khamzat, so DDP's got to make sure he wins that first one. Key No. 2: Push the pace. When (Chimaev) seems to fail on those clashes, that's when you see a little weakness in his armor, is that his cardio isn't insane. But once again, that credits to his health.
"He was always gassed out, he was always overtrained when he would fight. I'm going to have to go DDP just because DDP has fought the best of the best of the division. This guy's able to throw a right hand, fall, slip on a banana peel, and for some reason the (opponent) falls over. It just doesn't make sense how he's able to get things done, and he has a style where it forces people to do things that shouldn't have worked essentially. So for that, I'm going to go with DDP."