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FIRST THINGS FIRST
Welcome to Open Note Grappling.
Every Tuesday morning I send out a breakdown of the best combat sports action. In less than 10 minutes you'll learn how the top fighters win and anything else fighters, martial artists, and fight fans need to know.
It’s finally here. Dricus Du Plessis is defending the middleweight title against Khamzat Chimaev. Today we’re going to take a look at the marquee match-up with maybe the most unknowns there have ever been in a title fight.
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Now let’s get into it.
What's In Today's Letter?
After 5 years and 1 month Khamzat Chimaev has earned his title shot. The Chechen juggernaut started his UFC career with 3 wins in less than 2 months. A record that is unlikely to ever be broken.
Then the pace slowed. Dramatically.
1 year to his next fight. And each of his past 3 fights have been roughly a year apart. Chimaev has been plagued by injuries, illness, and visa issues. But the whole time he’s remained undefeated.
Chimaev is the Boogeyman we knew to expect. We just couldn’t say when until now.
Chimaev’s opponent, the reigning and defending Middleweight Champion Dricus Du Plessis (DDP), has had a career almost opposite of that.
Yes, Du Plessis has been dominant. He picked up regional championships in the South African promotion ECW as well as Polish promotion KSW, but he hasn’t made it look easy.
Yeah, I know he’s finished 20 of his 23 wins, but he’s looked straight up goofy doing it! He pulls people on top of him, flops around, and wings wild hands and feet. But the bottom line is it works.
Against all odds, Du Plessis has the belt wrapped around his waste until someone can rip it off his spazzy self. And what else matters in fighting? Who cares about the platonic ideals of pure pugilism if you lose?
Du Plessis’s success is indicative of the fact that MMA is an offensive sport first and foremost. It’s not that a good offense is a good defense. It’s that bulls like Du Plessis can overwhelm opponents with their constant activity and come out on top.
We don’t get Floyd Mayweather shoulder rolling his way to a title or Willie Pep dancing around the ring winning a round without throwing a single strike. We get Khabib Nurmagomedov sprinting at opponents, Kazushi Sakuraba securing a kimura his back gets taken, and Du Plessis cranking people’s faces off after wrestling them to the floor.
But you can’t assume he’ll do that Chimaev. No one has. And, until that changes, you can’t bet with any certitude it will happen next.
Instead, we can look at Du Plessis’s wild activity to try to find how his unorthodox grappling can (maybe) keep him alive long enough to take the win back from Chimaev.