You don’t want to make any mistakes when training at the CIT Performance Institute, home of UFC middleweight champion Dricus Du Plessis.
Du Plessis is set to defend his belt against former champion Israel Adesanya in the main event of UFC 305 this weekend in Perth, Australia.
On a recent episode of the UFC Countdown pre-fight show, fans were given a look inside Du Plessis’ gym in Pretoria, South Africa, and learned that his head trainer, Morne Visser, uses a simplified version of a taser to keep fighters under control.
From UFC 305 countdown: Head trainer Morne Visser uses a taser on his students to prevent bad habits. photo.twitter.com/K57ZYrgUqu
— Alexander Volkara France (@VolkaraFrance) August 10, 2024
“This is my assistant coach,” Visser said, brandishing his stun baton (via MMA Mania). “He [expletive] “He’s not standing, he’s not keeping his hands up, he’s not kicking when he’s supposed to, so I’m going to fix that.”
Although this practice is at best uncomfortable and at worst quite dangerous, Du Plessis doesn’t seem to have a problem with it.
“It’s much better [than a] “It’s a mental note,” the middleweight champion said. “Much better than a sticky note.”
In fact, it seems that Du Plessis would not be the world champion he is today if it were not for this strange practice.
“He doesn’t [expletive] “I can’t get up much more,” the trainer said of the UFC champion.
Du Plessis captured the UFC middleweight title with a decision win over Sean Strickland in January. He also has recent wins over top-level opponents Robert Whittaker, Darren Till and Derek Brunson.
Adesanya has not fought since losing the title with a decision loss to Strickland in 2023, one of the biggest upsets of the year. Before that, he had scored a knockout victory over current light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira.
