Dricus Du Plessis retained the middleweight title at UFC 305 by submitting Israel Adesanya in the fourth round.
Considering the styles of both fighters, it's not necessarily surprising to see the champion get the victory in this fashion but the result doesn't tell the full story.
"Stillknocks" was able to get the tap by hurting Adesanya on the feet, jumping on his back and quickly locking in the choke which his opponent admitted was caused by a simple mistake that he made in defending it.
Du Plessis has always been a very effective finisher with 20 of his 22 pro wins ending inside the distance but what impressed one of the top minds in the sport was how he circumnavigates a basic rule of Jiu-Jitsu to threaten with submissions.
Firas Zahabi Breaks Down How Dricus Du Plessis Ignores Jiu-Jitsu Fundamentals When Finishing Fights
Firas Zahabi gave his thoughts on the main event during a recent YouTube video on the Tristar Gym channel where he pointed out an interesting element of Du Plessis' game which may have been overlooked.
The head coach of Georges St-Pierre referenced how one of the first things you're taught in Jiu-Jitsu is that you go position over submission.
Especially in MMA where strikes are involved, going for an attack and losing your position as a result can be incredibly costly, but the middleweight champion ignores this altogether.
Rather than looking to control Adesanya first, he went right for the choke which caught his opponent off guard and gave him insufficient time to regain his bearings.
Zahabi highlighted this after seeing the South African champ pull off his first title defense.
He choked him and I realized something about Du Plessis. When Du Plessis gets somebody down, he jumps immediately on the choke, he doesn't solidify position you know and in Jiu-Jitsu, we're always taught, the old school mentality was like position, position, position, and then submission. It was like always burnt into our minds. You take the guy down, you stabilize him, you stabilize him, you stabilize him and then you submit him. Well Du Plessis doesn't do that, he flies in the face of everything everybody ever told us.