Kamaru Usman warned about Dricus du Plessis by long-time friend and UFC legend Frankie Edgar

Frankie Edgar believes Dricus du Plessis’ unorthodox style could impact Kamaru Usman’s approach.

While two fighters missed weight ahead of UFC Oklahoma City, each halves of the principal event encountered no issues before July 18.

Size has been a giant talking point ahead of the middleweight contest that headlines the cardboard.

Usman isn’t concerned about fighting a bigger opponent, but that isn’t the one attribute that ‘Stillknocks’ brings to the table.

Who wins when Dricus du Plessis and Kamaru Usman fight? 👊

Frankie Edgar highlights Dricus du Plessis’ unorthodox style ahead of Kamaru Usman clash

Each Frankie Edgar and Kamaru Usman are in motion later today, with matchups going down in several promotions.

Edgar shared his thoughts on the return of ‘The Nigerian Nightmare’ when previewing his RAF 11 match against Clay Guida with Bloody Elbow.

The UFC Hall of Famer highlighted how he believes Usman might want to reap the benefits of his well-rounded skillset with a purpose to beat Dricus du Plessis attributable to his awkward style.

“I believe you possibly can take the Khamzat fight to get some information on that fight based on Kamaru’s fight with him and DDP’s fight,” Edgar said. “If Kamaru can go on the market and implement the identical plan, taking him down and continuously holding him down, I believe it’s gonna be a reasonably one-way fight but Kamaru also has pretty good striking as well. 

“I believe DDP’s rhythm and unorthodox style will throw that off a little bit so I do think that Kamaru’s gonna get the W nevertheless it’s gonna take some grappling being involved.”

Edgar and Usman’s friendship goes back a protracted time as two elite fighters under the identical management team.

Back in 2020, they visited a youth boxing club in Columbia together, a visit that Edgar described to the UFC as “life changing”.

Takedown defense wasn’t a problem for Dricus du Plessis until his first UFC loss

Dricus du Plessis’ takedown defense stats were massively impacted by his last fight against Khamzat Chimaev.

‘Stillknocks’ faced a complete of 17 takedown attempts in his first UFC loss, with ‘Borz’ finding success with 12 of them.

His overall takedown defense statistic now stands at 34%, despite this not being a problem for him prior to now.

Kamaru Usman only has 44% takedown accuracy, but this was also impacted by his last fight, where he took down Joaquin Buckley 4 times with 13 attempts.