Dricus du Plessis Recalls Intense Sparring with Valentina Shevchenko When She Head Kicked Him

Dricus Du Plessis recently called what it was like training with fellow UFC champion Valentina Shevchenko.

During a recent appearance on Breakfast with Martin Bester, ‘Stillknocks’ shared an interesting story about his experience sparring with ‘Bullet’ long before he himself would become a UFC titleholder.

“She is incredible. I sparred [with] her once,” Du Plessis said. “This was when I was younger, like 19 or 20. She’s very small… I’m looking at this lady, I’m still a youngster, so I thought, ‘How am I supposed to?’ And she kicked me right in the head. And I’m like, ‘Okay, then this is not me taking it easy. This is me surviving.'”

Today, both Du Plessis and Shevchenko are UFC champions. DDP’ is currently holding things down in the middleweight division following his split decision victory over ex-titleholder Sean Strickland in January. Since then, Du Plessis has successfully defended his gold, submitting Israel Adesanya in the third round of their 185-pound headliner in August.

A month later, Shevchenko would reclaim the women’s flyweight crown via a dominant five-round performance against Alexa Grasso at UFC 306 inside Sphere in Las Vegas. It was her ninth career victory in UFC title fights and etched Shevchenko’s name in the history books as the promotion’s first and only two-time women’s 125-pound champion.

Dricus Du Plessis books rematch with Sean Strickland at UFC 312

While ‘Bullet’ has not yet booked the first defense of her second reign, Dricus Du Plessis will be back in action on February 8 when the promotion heads back to Sydney, Australia for UFC 312.

There, ‘DDP’ will run it back with Strickland, the middleweight division’s top-ranked contender.

Strickland earned his rematch with ‘DDP’ via a solid showing against one-time title challenger Paulo Costa in June.