Daniel Cormier Shares Alex Pereira’s Take on Potential Fight With Dricus du Plessis

Daniel Cormier recently revealed a conversation with Alex Pereira about fighting Dricus Du Plessis.

Du Plessis made his second successful middleweight title defense with a dominant decision win over Sean Strickland at UFC 312 this past weekend in Sydney. In his post-fight Octagon interview, “Stillknocks” called out light heavyweight champ Alex Pereira, who was in Strickland’s corner. The South African did so by quoting the famous one liner from the movie Gladiator: “Is there no one left?”

Cormier, who was on the commentary team, subsequently made it clear to Pereira that Du Plessis called him out. Pereira allegedly dismissed Du Plessis as too small for 205 pounds. Regardless of whether the South African moves up at some point, “DC” notes that he first has to deal with at least Khamzat Chimaev at middleweight.

“Dricus Du Plessis is the man,” Cormier said on his YouTube channel. “In the Octagon, he called out Pereira. I told Pereira after the fight, I go, ‘He wants you, Pereira.’ Pereira goes, ‘He’s just too small.’ Seriously. Pereira goes, ‘This man is just too small.’ Alex is huge, though. I mean, he looked massive compared to Dricus. I love that Dricus has these big goals. I just think he still has work to do at middleweight before he starts thinking about going up – Khamzat Chimaev being problem No. 1.”

Du Plessis won the title against Strickland via split decision at UFC 297 last year and went on to defend it against Israel Adesanya via submission at UFC 305. While Du Plessis is eyeing Pereira, he also admitted the need to get past Chimaev first at the UFC 312 post-fight press conference.

Meanwhile, Pereira won the middleweight title against Adesanya, lost it in a rematch, moved up and won the light heavyweight strap and has since defended it three times – all within a span of two years. “Poatan” is now set to put his title on the line against Magomed Ankalaev in the main event at UFC 313 on March 8 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.