Outside Source
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.
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.”
This article first appeared at Recent News on Sherdog.com
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