When Alex Pereira lost the UFC light heavyweight title to Magomed Ankalaev, the dollar signs in Dricus Du Plessis ’ eyes went along with it. UFC middleweight champion Du Plessis (23-2 MMA, 9-0 UFC) and the now former 205-pound champ Pereira (12-3 MMA, 9-2 UFC) had been circling each other about the idea of potential clash inside the octagon. They’d made callouts and inserted each other into storylines that was all building toward a potential future fight. Du Plessis thinks it was all derailed at UFC 313 when Ankalaev took Pereira’s belt by unanimous decision in a relatively lackluster affair.