Given the rich history of boxing in South Africa, home to world champions like “Baby” Jake Matlala, Brian Mitchell, Corrie Sanders and Lehlo Ledwaba, just to name a few, it’s surprising that no one ever broke through to the championship level in the UFC. But Dricus Du Plessis changed that last weekend when he defeated Sean Strickland for the middleweight crown, and it was a big win not just for “Stillknocks,” but for a generation of fighters who might now see MMA as a career path instead of boxing. As for the new champ’s immediate future, he made no bones about fighting former titleholder Israel Adesanya, and that’s a stylistic matchup made for fireworks at 185 pounds.
2 – Raquel Pennington
This article was originally published by Ufc.com. Read the original article here.