Dricus Du Plessis wants the third fight. Speaking to Fight Forecast a few days after Roberto Soldic made his UFC debut at UFC 332, the former middleweight champion said a trilogy with his old KSW rival could happen as a super fight if the Croatian earns it first.
Du Plessis welcomed Soldic’s arrival in the UFC, calling it great and noting that for a long time Soldic had been, in many people’s minds, the best fighter outside the promotion.
Then came the catch, delivered the way a man who has done the climbing tends to deliver it.
“Being the best outside of the UFC is not being the best in the UFC. We have seen that many times,” Du Plessis said.
He pointed out that Soldic competes at welterweight and that the series sits at 1-1, and he laid out the path plainly. If Soldic gets a couple of wins and then decides he wants a middleweight fight, Du Plessis is open to it. His verdict on the matchup itself was short.
“I think that fight would be awesome,” he said.
Two fights, 11 months apart
The history is the reason anyone cares. Du Plessis stopped Soldic by TKO when they first met in 2018. Eleven months later they ran it back for the KSW welterweight title, and Soldic knocked him out, according to Bloody Elbow.
What each man did afterward split sharply. Du Plessis rattled off 11 consecutive wins and became one of the best fighters on the planet, eventually holding the UFC middleweight belt. Soldic won a middleweight title in KSW and then signed with ONE Championship, where things stalled. Between 2022 and 2025 he fought only three times, going one win, one loss and one no contest after a low blow.
His UFC 332 debut ended a 20-month layoff, and it wasn’t tidy. The 31-year-old got dropped twice early by Khaos Williams, survived both knockdowns and came back to win a decision on Saturday night.
Where Du Plessis stands
Du Plessis lost the middleweight title to Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 319 in August 2025. He got back in the win column this July by battering former welterweight champion Kamaru Usman across five rounds, and three months on he still doesn’t have a next opponent.
He said he dealt with an injury and was out for a while, but has told the UFC he’ll be ready to fight early next year. With Sean Strickland and Nassourdine Imavov set to meet, he called the division “a bit of a weird situation” and named the four men he sees at the top: Strickland, Imavov, Chimaev and himself. “They’re not going to make me fight backwards,” he said. “I think the Strickland-Imavov fight is going to play a big role in what’s going to happen for me next.”
Quick take
Du Plessis has the order of operations exactly right, and I’d hold him to it. Soldic is a real fighter with real history, and the knockout in that second fight is a genuine piece of Du Plessis’s story, the loss that came before 11 straight wins. But one UFC decision, earned after getting dropped twice by Khaos Williams, following three fights in four years, is a comeback in progress and nowhere near a résumé for a title-level middleweight. Give Soldic two more wins at welterweight, let him decide he wants to move up, and the trilogy will sell itself. For now Du Plessis’s calendar runs through Strickland and Imavov, and the earliest he’s said he can return is early next year.
