COACH CONVERSATION UFC 305: DU PLESSIS VS ADESANYA

Dricus du Plessis - UFC middleweight champion and Israel Adesanya - No.2 UFC middleweight stare off during the UFC 305 On Sale Press Conference on July 03, 2024 in Perth, Australia. (Photo by Will Russell/Zuffa LLC)

After Cornering Against The Main Event Combatants In Consecutive Contests, Eric Nicksick Drops By To Dissect Saturday’s Middleweight Title Fight

By E. Spencer Kyte, on X: @SpencerKyte • Aug. 13, 2024

Ahead of every championship fight, UFC staff writer E. Spencer Kyte will sit down with one of the sharpest coaching minds in the sport to break down the action and provide UFC fans with insights into each championship pairing from the men who spend their days getting these elite athletes prepared to compete on the biggest stage in the sport.

For the UFC 305 middleweight championship main event between Dricus Du Plessis and two-time former champ Israel Adesanya, there really was only one option: Eric Nicksick, head coach at Xtreme Couture, who helped lead Sean Strickland to victory over Adesanya last September in Sydney before the tandem faced off with Du Plessis at UFC 297 earlier this year in Toronto.

Best Trait of Each Fighter

Kyte: You’ve coached against these two in consecutive title fights, helping Sean to beat Izzy and battling tooth and nail with DDP in January. You’ve studied them, you know them, so tell me — what’s the best trait of each guy?

Nicksick: So Dricus, it’s his durability and the unpredictable nature of his striking; the erratic rhythm and motion.

UFC 305 Breakdown | Dricus Du Plessis vs Israel Adesanya

When you talk about erratic motion, he reminds me a lot of Sean Strickland in a sense that you’re not gonna find many sparring partners that mimic what Dricus does. So when I say “erratic” — what I wanted when Sean fought Izzy, I didn’t want harmony in the pocket; I didn’t want beautiful striking; I wanted things to come from weird angles.

Kyte: Something different every time. Never give him the same setup, never let him see the same look.

Nicksick: You nailed it. Be awkward, make it take a minute to catch on. I think what Dricus needs to lean on is relish in the fact that he’s a little awkward and erratic in the way he throws things.

Kyte: It’s 2024 Keith Jardine in the way he does things, right? A little hunched over, a little gawky. He’s way more athletic than Keith Jardine, but still just looks kind of weird.

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When you’re prepping for that, watching tape, trying to break that down, are there patterns to read? It feels like he’s just doing something different every time.

Nicksick: Every time! The one thing that we were picking up on is he has a switch step that he’ll do and it comes with a big left or right overhand; he kind of charges forward with that, and I’ll get into that with Izzy on what he should do game plan-wise.

Israel Adesanya of Nigeria reacts after knocking out Alex Pereira of Brazil in the UFC middleweight championship fight during the UFC 287 event at Kaseya Center on April 08, 2023 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC)

He does it very well and it’s just this juggernaut, blitzkrieg of “I’m going and I’m throwing and I don’t care what is coming back at me!” He makes the decision and it’s “I’m gonna go reckless.”

I had a good conversation with Dricus about that after (the fight) when we were chopping it up. I said, “I don’t believe that you don’t know what you’re doing. I feel like you’re starting to understand what you’re trying to set up and how you’re trying to implement it” and he was like, “Yeah, man, I just kind of figured that out after the Brad (Tavares) fight. I feel like I’ve added a lot more since that fight.”

Kyte: And then with Izzy, obviously he does a lot of things well, but what’s the best thing he does?

Nicksick: I’ve said it and I’ll say it again — he’s a snake-charmer with the feint game.

(Robert) Follis said it beautifully, “It’s the space between the notes that makes the music” and that is Izzy Adesanya. That’s the rhythm, the feint game, the snake-charmer; he’s the conductor of the orchestra.

Order UFC 305: Du Plessis vs Adesanya

Kyte: He just lures you in.

Main Event Preview | UFC 305: Du Plessis vs Adesanya

Nicksick: He lures you in, but what makes him so great is that he’s a sniper sniping off the reads — he’s catching you off what he sees, what you’re doing when you rear-hand parry or check or pull or something; he’s catching your timing.

I think he’s the best at it. Anderson (Silva), Conor (McGregor) — he’s in that group; Alex Pereira, too. He’s just got that level of striking to where the reason you have to fight him the way that Sean and Dricus do is that it’s beautiful art, and you want to be disruptive.

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Everybody else is coloring outside the lines and this dude is Monet.

Kyte: And you need to counter his beauty by being Jackson Pollock.

Nicksick: There you go!

Dricus Du Plessis of South Africa reacts after his victory against Sean Strickland in a UFC middleweight championship bout during the UFC 297 event at Scotiabank Arena on January 20, 2024 in Toronto, Ontario. (Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC)

Path to Victory for Each Fighter

Kyte: So we’ve kind of touched on it already for both guys, but what is the path to victory for each guy?

Nicksick: The path to victory for Dricus is to stay erratic.

Don’t try to stay within the patterns of combinations — just believe in your reads — and then again, the blueprint has been laid out: you’ve got to bottle-neck him. You’ve got to put him on the barriers, you’ve gotta put him on the corner posts and make him square his feet. That was big for us, that was big for Pereira when he beat him the first time, and it was big for Pereira when he was beating him in the second fight but got caught.

I say it time and time again: you have to eliminate some of that lateral movement and the 45-degree angles from Izzy; you have to.

I don’t think that it’s going to be as important for Dricus to wrestle because he hasn’t shown me that he can take somebody down and hold them down. He didn’t do it with Sean, didn’t do it with Brad. The only guy I really saw him do it with was Darren Till, and that doesn’t count.

Israel Adesanya Fight Week Interview | UFC 305

Kyte: Yeah, that doesn’t count.

Nicksick: So I think if he does the same style of wrestling game plan that he did with Sean where he sprinkled it in to give him something to worry about, then I think that is effective to a degree, especially if you’re trying to seal up rounds. I think if he’s wrestling, it’s for that reason.

But you’ve gotta be wary of getting in the clinch with a guy like Izzy, who is gonna be taller and longer and more versed in the Muay Thai elements, so you have to be dirty and grimy in there. Those are the biggest things for me with Dricus — stay who you are, stay erratic, understand what you’re doing in the context of what you do.

UFC 305 Embedded

Kyte: Doesn’t look great, but it tastes good!

And for Izzy, it’s pretty much the opposite, right? You’ve got to be moving, you’ve got to be doing those snake-charmer things where you’re getting off clean shots and getting out of the way.

Nicksick: If I could say one more thing about Dricus because you just reminded me: don’t fall in love with the feints — his feints; don’t get mesmerized.

What Dricus does so well is that he’s not a counter-puncher, he’s not sitting back — he’s starting the rhythm.

Dricus Du Plessis Fight Week Interview | UFC 305

Kyte: He’s just all-go.

Nicksick: So don’t buy into where you’re sitting back and watching him. If you do that, you’re losing the fight.

With Izzy, here is where I feel like Sean screwed up the most: a lot of the game plan was to disrupt the forward pressure by Dricus by utilizing our lead and rear teeps. We did it a little bit in the first round, maybe the second, but we got away from it.

That was the thing I was asking for the most because we were allowing Dricus to get in on the second and third punches, and it’s because we weren’t stopping him in his tracks with the lead or rear teep. I think Izzy needs to utilize that, get back to his calf kicks, and when he’s able to utilize that teep, he has such a good question mark kick that that will come into play.

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The other thing that I wanted Sean to do in the fight that I picked up as a read in the fight is that Dricus will throw his head off the center line, one side or the other, and if you can be in the pocket and create a car crash with an elbow or a knee, you will walk him into your power. He will do all the work for you; you don’t have to expose yourself.

Kyte: Just put it in his path.

Israel Adesanya of Nigeria celebrates after his knockout victory over Robert Whittaker of New Zealand in their UFC middleweight championship fight during the UFC 243 event at Marvel Stadium on October 06, 2019 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Jeff Botta

Nicksick: Every time. He’ll throw that big looping overhand, and I was telling Sean, “If you can throw an elbow or just bring a knee up, you’ll walk him right into that.” Somebody as versed in the striking as Izzy is has the tools to do what I wanted Sean to do, and he’s smart enough to see that in the moment.

X Factor

Kyte: If there were one thing that was going to significantly impact how this fight plays out — that swings it in one direction or the other — what would it be?

Nicksick: The layoff.

Kyte: Just about a year.

Nicksick: The layoff can be spun as a positive and it can be spun like a negative.

For me, it’s not like he’s been gone for two-and-a-half years — he’s not Stipe — and he might have needed it, might have cleared his mind. He might have had the best time off and come back reinvigorated and refocused, or, you know, it can be where it became a detriment.

I don’t know, but to me that’s the X factor.

I think it’s the former — I think he’s gonna come back reinvigorated and come back the best he’s ever been. The guy that lost to Alex Pereira and then came back and starched him, that’s who I think we’re gonna see.

Dricus Du Plessis celebrates after defeating Robert Whittaker in a middleweight bout during UFC 290 at T-Mobile Arena on July 08, 2023 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Du Plessis won with a second-round TKO. (Photo by Steve Marcus/Getty Images)

Kyte: He fought so much. He went 16 fights from his debut in February 2018 and the fight with Sean, so five-and-a-half years. That’s three-a-year, every year, and the last four years are at the championship level.

That’s a lot.

Nicksick: Right. That’s a lot.

Kyte: It’s interesting because I understand everything Dricus was saying at their press conference launching the event in Perth — and it’s the question we ask all the time when we get someone that is in Izzy’s position: you’re 35, you’ve been to the top of the mountain twice, and the last time you got there by exorcising the last demon that was out there, doing it in spectacular fashion, so can you get up for this anymore?

You didn’t against Sean, and that’s not to take anything away from his performance and your coaching, but you seemed up for Dricus, he couldn’t go, and can you get back up for him now?

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I think he can, but that’s the question, tucked right in there with the layoff — does he still have it? Can he still do it?

One Coaching Curiosity

Kyte: If there is a little something in this matchup that catches your eye, that piques your interest from a coaching standpoint, what is it?

Nicksick: I would like to see Izzy see a little adversity, similar to the fight with Sean, and I want to see how he responds to that adversity; that’s my coaching thing.

UFC middleweight champion and Israel Adesanya - No.2 UFC middleweight stare off during the UFC 305 On Sale Press Conference on July 03, 2024 in Perth, Australia. (Photo by Will Russell/Zuffa LLC)

What adjustments are made? This isn’t me talking s*** about Eugene, but I felt like they had no answer; no adjustments were made and they looked lost, so I wanna see what happens. I wanna see him lose Round 1 or Round 2 and then see how he responds to some adversity.

Kyte: I talked about this fight with some other people yesterday and this was my thing, too, because this is a fight that can get away from you in a hurry if you’re Izzy.

If you come out making reads, and you’re wanting to be cute, and you’re being too selective, you’re down 1-0 and then 2-0, and then what do you do? Now it’s 3-0 and you need a finish.

Nicksick: Now you need a finish. I’m with you. That’s my biggest thing, man.

Kyte: Then you start getting in your head a little, so we’ve gotta see it.

I would love to see him come out sharp right out of the gates, because then you know he’s dialed in and he’s on. I would like to see Izzy from the first round with Costa where you know, “This dude is back!”

Nicksick: Get in his *** right away.

Kyte: But I also kind of want to see him lose Round 1 to see if he can say, “Okay, we can’t have this s*** happening again!” and rally right back, because that was the Sean fight; just got buried and never found his way out.

Nicksick: Yep, and that means you’ve lost four or five rounds in a row, because we won one, he won two, and we won three, four, and five.

Kyte: It’s gonna be interesting.

Nicksick: Yep!

Don't miss a moment of UFC 305: Du Plessis vs Adesanya, live from RAC Arena in Perth, Western Australia on August 17, 2024. Prelims start at 8pm ET/5pm PT, while the main card kicks off live on PPV at 10pm ET/7pm PT.