Dricus du Plessis isn’t buying the excuses from Khamzat Chimaev’s camp that a tough weight cut was the reason for his middleweight title loss against Sean Strickland.

“I think this whole weight cut excuse is ridiculous, to be honest with you,” du Plessis told Fight Forecast. “I think Tsarukyan said he cut 12 pounds in the 24 hours. Those are rookie numbers. Twelve pounds in 24 hours, that’s not that bad. [46 pounds] in total, over the camp it doesn’t matter. What matters is that last 24 hours and 12 pounds is not that much. I’ve definitely done more than that.

“Yeah, sometimes I’ve had bad weight cuts, too. I have. Everybody that cuts weight has had that experience where the next day you feel ‘ugh’ and you have a bad cut. One kilogram can make the world’s difference in a weight cut. I just think using a weight cut as an excuse when it comes to the fight, even if you did have a bad weight cut, it’s fine. It’s happened to all of us, but you don’t go go out and say, ‘I lost the fight because of that.’ No. If you want to change weight divisions, change weight divisions, but blaming a bad weight cut is like saying, ‘I lost the fight because I wasn’t fit.’ It’s on you. Be more disciplined. Be more disciplined then and the weight cut will be easier. Any excuse, for me, when you get into the octagon, there is no excuse.”

DDP has skin in this game as he has previously beaten Strickland twice and is now eyeing up a trilogy fight as he looks to win back the 185lb title, but will be concerned that an immediate rematch between Strickland and Khamzat would throw a spanner in the works.

And as far as he’s concerned, Khamzat simply hasn’t earned the right to rematch Strickland at this stage.

“For Khamzat, he said he wants to go to 205. The easier route for sure, to take off the burden of a weight cut, but I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. You know with Khamzat, he says one thing, then he says another thing, he said he’s moving up to 205 to Dana, but now he’s calling Strickland for a rematch. I don’t think he deserves a rematch. He definitely doesn’t because he has no title defenses, zero. So it doesn’t justify a rematch at all, but it’s going to be interesting to see what he does next.”