Dricus Du
Plessis has accused former
Ultimate Fighting Championship titleholder Kamaru
Usman of delaying their bout.
While Usman and du Plessis are now confirmed to be squaring off at
UFC Oklahoma City on July 18, the latter claims “The Nigerian
Nightmare” wasn’t keen on the matchup. Ahead of the two former
champions’ clash, du Plessis has revealed that the UFC had to
convince Usman to sign the contract.
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Dricus Du Plessis claims Kamaru Usman didn’t want UFC fight
contract
The UFC Oklahoma City main event announcement was left until the
11th hour, despite du Plessis claiming weeks earlier that he’d been
offered a fight and was waiting for his opponent to sign the
contract. With the Fight Night headlining bout now confirmed,
“Stillknocks” has opened up about how it came together.
“He didn’t want to sign the contract. I know that for a fact,” du
Plessis said in an interview with Fight Forecast. “I spoke to the
UFC and they said, ‘We finally convinced him to sign.’ If you need
convincing to sign, that’s a problem, but I can’t blame him. I
would also not want to fight me right now. It would be the smart
move not to sign the fight, but let’s go.”
While Usman is a couple of years removed from his dominant
welterweight title run, du Plessis isn’t counting out the
Nigerian-American, especially considering how Usman’s teammate
Justin
Gaethje defeated the far younger Ilia
Topuria at
UFC Freedom 250.
“We’ve been talking about the fight for a long time. He’s mentioned
the fight way before we made the fight and I said, ‘Well, cool.
I’ll take that fight.’ Now people will say, ‘Why don’t you fight
[Nassourdine] Imavov?’ I don’t mind that fight either,” he added.
“I want to fight somebody that gets me to my title again. Kamaru
Usman, yes, he’s a bit older, but now you look at what [Justin]
Gaethje just did, so that throws that argument out the window
immediately.”