Dricus Du Plessis's coach hopes the fight against Alex Pereira can take place in December: “We will just go up”

[autotag]Dricus Du Plessis[/autotag]' Coach is game for [autotag]Alex Pereira[/autotag] next – but in the light heavyweight division.

Middleweight champion Du Plessis (22-2 MMA, 8-0 UFC) made his first title defense when he submitted Israel Adesanya in Round 4 of the UFC 305 main event on Saturday at RAC Arena in Perth, Australia.

Light heavyweight champion Pereira (11-2 MMA, 8-1 UFC) stated that he would return to middleweight to challenge Du Plessis, but head coach Morne Visser would prefer that Du Plessis move up for a chance at double champion status.

Pereira is currently scheduled to defend his title against Khalil Rountree in the main event of UFC 307 in Salt Lake City on October 5, and Visser hopes that “Poatan” can continue his active career by making a quick turnaround by the end of the year.

“No, I'm not going to give him the joy of going down to 185 pounds,” Visser told Submission Radio in Pereira. “We're just going to move up because we don't want to beat him, and he'll say, 'We had to go down,' and he was exhausted and stuff. So, no – we're going to move up.”

“I'm sure the UFC is OK with it – a raise if that's what he said. I know Dricus is in, so we'll do the raise. I'm not going to wait for him to come back down. He's fighting in October, so I really hope the UFC gives us their blessing for December – as soon as possible.”

Visser did not want to give an answer to the stylistic duel between Du Plessis and Pereira, but assured that the UFC would immediately accept the fight if it was offered.

“It's a different game plan,” Visser said. “We're definitely not going to shy away from being asked by the UFC to do something like that. We've been criticized a few times because Dricus has said no in the past because of injuries. This fight (against Adesanya) was supposed to happen sooner. I'm glad it didn't happen that way because I'm sure Izzy changed his whole game plan, so that was a real brawl.”

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For more information on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 305.

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Dricus Du Plessis' trainer hopes fight against Alex Pereira can take place in December: “We'll just go up”