Despite getting dominated, Dricus Du Plessis explains why Khamzat Chimaev wasn't his toughest opponent.
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Du Plessis (23-3 MMA, 9-1 UFC) was smothered by Chimaev (15-0 MMA, 9-0 UFC) in their middleweight title fight at UFC 319, where he lost a lopsided unanimous decision. He was taken down 12 times and controlled for more than 21 minutes.
However, when asked about his toughest fight, Du Plessis had a different answer.
"The best guy for me that I've fought – obviously the Khamzat fight was one that I lost pretty significantly, but that wasn't a fight," Du Plessis said on Fight Forecast. "That's an obvious answer, so let's take that one out of the equation. (Israel) Adesanya was the best guy that I've faced, just in terms of everything that he did, man.
"His timing, the speed, the power he kicks with, even takedown defense-wise, everything. He was the best technical guy that I've ever faced. Toughest guy has to be Brad Tavares or Sean Strickland. It just has to be in terms of the amount of shots they took and just kept standing. Strickland more so takes the punches but rolls with it. Tavares took some solid shots, and he just kept standing. So, it's between the two of those."
Brad Tavares was the first person to take Du Plessis the distance after the South African fighter had boasted a 100 percent finish rate in all his wins prior. Du Plessis would go to a decision with Sean Strickland twice in middleweight title fights after.
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Dricus Du Plessis has surprising answer for toughest UFC fight