UFC 282 SA Predictions: Dricus du Plessis and Cameron Saaiman Ready to Shine  

For the first time ever, two South African fighters will compete on the same card in the world’s pre-eminent mixed martial arts promotion when Dricus du Plessis and his protégé Cameron Saaiman fly the flag at in Las Vegas on Saturday night (Sunday morning SA time), writes Quintin van Jaarsveld.

History-makers with the potential to go all the way to the top in their respective weight classes, the pair from Pretoria-based Team CIT are primed for the biggest fights of their budding careers. 

Du Plessis has already broken new ground as the first South African to reach the top 15 of any division in the UFC and plans to take a giant leap into the middleweight top 10 with a win over former title challenger Darren Till. 

Saaiman, meanwhile, will be making his promotional debut in a bantamweight bout against Ronnie Lawrence. Du Plessis is the favourite. Saaiman is the underdog. Both are hell-bent on stealing the show. 

Saaiman will showcase his skills on the prelims of the stacked event at the T-Mobile Arena, while Du Plessis will make his maiden pay-per-view main card appearance.

Main card (from 5 AM Sunday SA time)

Dricus du Plessis (1.71) v Darren Till (2.20) (Middleweight)

After a string of opponents pulled out one after the other earlier this year, with Kelvin Gastelum being chief among them, before Du Plessis (17-2) was finally able to step back inside the Octagon in July, the South African star’s luck has changed in a big way. 

On one hand, he made his own luck. The hard-hitting Hatfield-born fighter took his frustrations out on Brad Tavares in a thrilling three-round war at UFC 276, in the same venue as this weekend’s final pay-per-view of 2022. 

After giving up the first round, Du Plessis took over and punished the durable American veteran to earn a decision victory. It was the first time in the 28-year-old’s 19-fight career that he’d gone the distance. Known as “Stillknocks”, he’s a finisher extraordinaire with seven knockouts and nine submissions. 

The hard-fought win over an Octagon stalwart proved to the UFC what South African MMA experts already knew, that Du Plessis is the real deal and that his knockouts of Markus Perez and Trevin Giles in his first two UFC fights were no flukes. 

It extended his win streak to five but more importantly, it saw him become the first South African to break into the top 15 and stood to earn him a shot against a big-name opponent. Just how big came as a surprise as Till is one of the whales at 185 pounds (84 kilograms). 

As an added bonus, a late shake-up has seen the fight being elevated from the prelims to the pay-per-view main card. This comes after Jiri Prochazka, who was set to defend the light heavyweight championship against Glover Teixeira in the main event, was forced to withdraw and vacated the title due to a shoulder injury two weeks ago.

The original co-headliner between Jan Blachowicz and Magomed Ankalaev is the new main event and is for the vacant 205-pound belt with Du Plessis now poised to make more history as the first South African fighter to feature on a UFC pay-per-view main card.  

Till (18-4-1) finds himself in a serious slump, having won just one of his last five fights, but all of those were against elite fighters at 170 and 185 pounds. “The Gorilla” took over the mantle as Europe’s best from former middleweight champion Michael Bisping when he burst onto the UFC scene in 2017 and racked up four wins, including stopping Donald Cerrone and outpointing Stephen Thompson, to earn a shot at Tyron Woodley’s welterweight championship. 

“The Chosen One” proved too good, handing Till his first career loss in September 2018 and he was knocked out for the first and only time by Jorge Masvidal in his next fight, prompting his inevitable move up to middleweight. 

He made an immediate splash by beating top contender Kelvin Gastelum by split decision but was outpointed by former champion Robert Whittaker and most recently submitted in the third round by Derick Brunson.

He remains one of the very best as his ninth-place ranking underlines, especially on the feet, where this weekend’s bout will primarily play out with both he and 13th-ranked Du Plessis being stellar strikers.  

Till’s a very tricky opponent on the feet, which is why Woodley and Brunson took him down. Du Plessis has good throws and of the two he’ll more likely to try to mix things up, but Till’s always had good takedown defence and it would only have gotten better since he’s been training with Khamzat Chimaev. 

Ten of Till’s 18 wins are by knockout and six by decision. He’s lighter on his feet, more technical and more patient than Du Plessis and the fact that he’s a southpaw makes him that much more of a puzzle to solve. 

Du Plessis is by no means a brawler. He has a decorated kickboxing background, the pinnacle of which coming in 2012 when he became South Africa’s first-ever WAKO world champion, but he’s a much more aggressive striker than Till. 

The former two-division EFC champion and KSW welterweight king was guilty of lunging in with his chin up against Tavares and coach Morne Visser would no doubt have addressed that during training camp as Till’s an accurate counter-striker. 

He wins this fight by going forward and putting constant pressure on the possibly rusty Brit (the loss to Brunson came last September) in an intelligent manner. That’ll either see Till melt and result in a TKO in round two or three or lead to a decision victory for the fighting pride of Mzanzi. 

Prelims (from 2 AM Sunday SA time)

Cameron Saaiman (2.90) v Ronnie Lawrence (1.44) (Bantamweight)

Saaiman has turned dreams into reality at every turn in his MMA career. Fresh off conquering Africa like his mentor Du Plessis before him by capturing EFC gold with a decision victory over Sindile Manengela in June, he took an undefeated record onto Dana White’s Contender Series two months later.

The show is MMA’s ultimate job interview, an opportunity for prospects from around the world to impress the UFC president and earn a contract. Saaiman did it in fairy-tale fashion, knocking favourite Josh Wang-Kim out cold in the third round to become the then-youngest fighter ever signed by the UFC at 21 and had White hail him as “the future.”

Having knocked down the door to the Octagon with such style points, “MSP” will once again turn a dream into reality this weekend and his prodigious skillset and track-record point to him seizing the moment and then some. 

Like Du Plessis, he’s well-rounded but striking is where he shines. Kickboxing was his first foray into combat sport at the age of 12 before he joined CIT and transitioned into MMA in 2014. 

He’s a sophisticated striker with an array of techniques. What truly makes him a problem is his power. Few bantamweights (135-pound/61-kilogramme fighters) boast the one-punch knockout power Saaiman showcased to starch Wang-Kim. 

It’s a rare God-given ability that cannot be taught. You either have it or you don’t and Saaiman’s rivals that of former bantamweight king Cody Garbrandt. The baby-faced assassin is 6-0 with five finishes, all but one of those being knockouts. 

Crucially, he’s not in love with that power like you’d expect from a 21-year-old. He’s highly intelligent and has combat composure well beyond his years. He’s a humble kid who has complete faith in his coaches, which make him adaptable.

He showed all of the above in his big ticket-punching triumph over Wang-Kim. That knockout was so glorious that it’s easy to forget he’d dropped the first round and that it was only once he stepped up the pressure in the second that things went his way.

That’ll be important this weekend as Lawrence is a wrestler. At 30 years of age and 8-2, he’s a seasoned competitor who has invaluable time inside the Octagon on his side. He followed up a third-round TKO win over Vince Cachero in his promotional debut with a decision win over Mana Martinez in February but is looking to bounce back from a decision loss to Saidyokub Kakhramonov in July.

He has four knockouts but is very much a wrestling ground and pounder and will be looking for takedowns early and often. Saaiman has been taken down in fights. He was initially controlled by Manengela in their title tilt at EFC 94 but adapted and was able to scramble out and had top position at times to come away with the gold.

A Saaiman knockout is always in play but I see “The Heat” securing a few takedowns before Saaiman saps his energy, stuffs his takedown attempts and puts it on him on the feet to win the decision.