Khamzat Chimaev didn’t need to sink the choke in fully to submit Robert Whittaker at UFC 308, surprising everybody. Within minutes of taking ‘The Reaper’ down and softening him up, ‘Borz’ barely sunk in the choke before the Australian fighter tapped. The Chechen fighter’s strength was on full display as the submission attempt knocked back the bottom three teeth of ‘The Reaper’. The win impacted Chimaev’s position in the rankings to such an extent that the Chechen-born fighter made an unusually rare jump from #13 to #3. To any fan or fighter, that’s remarkably impressive. For the current middleweight champ? Not so much. From Dricus du Plessis’ viewpoint, Whittaker worked himself way too much prior to his clash with Chimaev in Abu Dhabi.

Dricus du Plessis made his mark in the scene last year when he defeated Robert Whittaker at UFC 290 with a dominating knockout win. It was later revealed that, just like Khamzat Chimaev, ‘Stillknocks’ also pushed ‘The Reaper’s teeth inside, and that he was the first one to do it. Fast forward three fights later, the former champion found himself in the same situation, which according to the South African national, was a wrong move. Du Plessis suggests that it would have been better for Whittaker to allow his teeth to heal completely before competing again.

“Obviously, Rob had those problems [breaking his teeth at UFC 290], and he was fighting – he was active after that fight,” Dricus Du Plessis told ‘Submission Radio’. “He fought two times, and he was in camp the whole time, so I think that was the problem. He didn’t get enough time to really recover.”

When we take a look at teeth injuries, they include soft tissue injuries that take days to heal. Tooth trauma takes about four to six weeks to heal, but the worst of all is a dental concussion, which can take several months depending on the situation. Do you think Robert Whittaker made a mistake stepping up to fight Khamzat Chimaev in light of his pre-existing injury? Well, Dricus du Plessis believes there’s another reason why Whittaker chose to fight despite his problems.

The pressure got to Robert Whittaker, claims Dricus du Plessis

A win over Khamzat Chimaev was possibly Robert Whittaker’s ticket back into title contention, which unfortunately didn’t happen at UFC 308. ‘The Reaper’ was pretty confident with two camps for Chimaev. However, with the results of that night, Whittaker went down the pecking order just due to feeling the “pressure to fight,” according to the middleweight champion.

“A lot of times, guys feel the pressure to fight even when they’re not in shape or not healthy to fight. Right now, people don’t really care if Rob wasn’t 100 percent healthy going into this fight with his teeth. They just saw the loss,” Dricus du Plessis added. Robert Whittaker would later admit that he had been having trouble with his teeth, proving ‘Stillknocks’ right, but he didn’t seem too bummed out about his loss.

With Khamzat Chimaev at #3 in the 185 lbs division, the middleweight division just got incredibly exciting. As for Whittaker, it remains to be seen how the future in the middleweight division will look for him. Will he be able to reclaim his title? Let us know in the comments down below.