Dricus du Plessis’ coach says the team turned down a UFC offer to put du Plessis into a light heavyweight grand prix, a bracket that would have run through one night and finished with a shot at Ulberg.
The coach laid it out on the Fight Forecast show, and Championship Rounds clipped it on X Tuesday. Sherdog picked up the story Thursday. According to the coach, the field was du Plessis, Jiri Prochazka, Navajo Stirling and Magomed Ankalaev.
Here’s how he described the format: “They wanted four guys to go into the pool and fight in one night. Then the winners of that fight each other, and the winner of that fights Ulberg.”
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His answer was short. “I said no... we will do it gradually. But we want our belt back, and we want to defend it once.”
So the plan, as the camp tells it, is middleweight first. Get the 185-pound belt back, defend it one time, then think about 205 on their own schedule. The coach didn’t put a date on any of it, and the UFC hasn’t said anything publicly about a tournament.
Ankalaev Was Already Talking
The timing gets interesting because Ankalaev spent Monday talking about du Plessis like the fight was halfway booked. Speaking to Bostanov MMA, Ankalaev said there was talk of du Plessis moving up and that a matchup between them was possible.
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“It’s a good fight for me, and I’m interested in it myself,” Ankalaev said.
A post from Dovy on X went further, saying Ankalaev claimed the UFC was working on a light heavyweight fight between the two for an event in December. Nobody from the promotion has confirmed that, so treat it as Ankalaev’s read on things and nothing more.
Put the two stories side by side and you get a picture of a promotion trying to drag du Plessis up a division, and a camp pumping the brakes. Whether the December talk was part of the same grand prix pitch or a separate one-off, the sources don’t say.
The Reaction
Not everyone was thrilled. Jed Meshew of MMA Fighting summed up the mood of a lot of fight nerds on X: “This is the first time in like 4 years that the UFC was gonna do something cool and DDP killed it. Tough day for your boy.”
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He’s got a point. A one-night, four-man tournament with Prochazka in it is the kind of thing the UFC hasn’t touched in the modern era, and Prochazka in a bracket is about as chaotic as a fight card gets.
My take: I wanted this tournament more than I want a hotel bar to stay open past 2 a.m. on fight week. Two fights in one night against Prochazka, Ankalaev or Stirling would have been the most fun the UFC has booked in years, and the matchmaker who drew it up deserves a raise. But the coach answered the question straight, and his logic holds. You don’t throw away a path back to a title you clearly still care about so you can take two fights in one night against 205-pounders. Ask for the belt back first. The bracket can wait, and if the UFC was willing to pitch it once, it’ll pitch it again.
