Dricus du Plessis believes fellow UFC champion Tom Aspinall is the future.
Aspinall has officially become the UFC’s indisputable heavyweight title holder, following the retirement of John Jones, who won the interim title since 2023.
“When you first saw the Battle of Tom Aspinall, you knew there was something special,” Du Plessis told South Africa. “He’s almost the next generation heavyweight in my opinion, he moves like middleweight. He has his legs lighter. He can tackle, he can attack, he can wrestling.
“I don’t think there are a lot of heavyweights on his level right now.”
Du Plessis and Aspinall both infiltrated the UFC scene at the same time, and Du Plessis’ debut took place in October 2020 with the UFC Fight Island card. Moving forward now, Duplesis is a few weeks away from his third middleweight title defense against Kamzachmaev at UFC 319, but Aspinel defends his title against Cyril Gain at UFC 321 in October.
Although Aspinall was unable to secure a unified match with Jones (who beat Gane at UFC 285 to claim a vacancy by Francis Ngannou), his heavyweight resume is undeniably impressive.
Surprisingly, its fateful Fight Island lineup was the debut of future lightweight featherweight champion Ilia Topria. “El Matador” recently claimed the vacant 155 pound title in UFC 317 with Charles Oliveira’s epic knockout, and believes Duplesis is doing enough to be immortal in the UFC Hall of Fame.
“He was literally in my changing room,” Duplesis said of Toplia. “We were on the same track and won a title a month away. I’m very pleased with him. I think he’s one of the special characters to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
“Invincible. He is the first undefeated man with two titles. I am very pleased with him and I highly appreciate him as a comprehensive fighter.