Dricus Du Plessis could be about to make a massive statement against Khamzat Chimaev, according to Mark Hulme.
The South African MMA stars have been training together for years, with the pair now on the cusp of the biggest fights of their careers.
‘Stillknocks’ is scheduled to put his middleweight title on the line against ‘Borz’ at UFC 319, while his teammate will make his next walk to the cage in the quarter-final of the €1,000,000 Tipsport Gamechanger competition against Dominik Humburger at Oktagon 74 on Saturday evening.
And while Joe Rogan thinks Chimaev’s grappling is ‘magnitudes’ better than Du Plessis’, Hulme is confident that his friend still has more than what it takes to retain his belt.
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Dricus Du Plessis could defeat Khamzat Chimaev via first-round guillotine
Having trained with Dricus Du Plessis extensively, Hulme knows exactly what his countryman is capable of.
With that in mind, he’s expecting the unorthodox athlete to finish Khamzat Chimaev, and even foresees a reality where it’s over inside the first five minutes.
In an exclusive interview with Bloody Elbow, he said: “Dricus gets it done under three. I wouldn’t be surprised if a guillotine lands in the first. That would be next level.”
The athletes are very close, with Hulme opening up about their intense training sessions.
The warrior explained: “It’s no secret things get intense. I wish I could remember what fight it was, it might’ve been the one before Robert Whittaker, and we were supposed to be doing technical sparring rounds in the PI.
“Everyone was stopping and looking and going ‘Are these guys crazy? They’re going at that pace and intensity that close to the fight’.
“It’s motivating to know a world champion chose for me to be there with him.”
Mark Hulme walked all the way from Johannesburg to Cape Town
In order to become the fighter he is today, Hulme has gone through his fair share of adversity.
Several years ago, he embarked on an incredible adventure that changed his life forever.
The 30-year-old reminisced: “It was a journey of self-discovery. I was at a time in my life where I lost hope. I told my sister, ‘I want to meet God on a mountain’. She laughed and said, ‘There’s a mountain in Cape Town’.
“It was 2020, during Covid, there were no flights, but I thought, ‘I really want this meeting, so I’ll walk there’. Then, it took me 50 days to get there.”
“I walked to a place called Diaz Beach, it’s in the Cape of Good Hope, that’s what I was looking for.
“After that, one of my friends suggested I do the 13 Peaks Challenge. I was like, ‘Sure’.
“It was 107 kilometers across 13 peaks in Cape Town. That’s where I wanted to meet God. Every peak, I prayed for something.
“On the 13th peak, when I got to the top, after three days of walking, almost quitting, tired, all I could ask or pray for was, ‘I love you God and thank you for the journey’.
“That’s what life is all about, sometimes we can get too serious, like ‘I’m fighting Dominik Humburger’, but I don’t have to be there every day, when I get in the cage I can switch that s— on’.”