In their first meeting in Toronto at UFC 297, Strickland had success with his jab in the early rounds and landed more strikes than Du Plessis, but the South African cut Strickland’s eye in the fourth.

Strickland finished strongly and the fight went to the judges’ scorecards, where Du Plessis triumphed 48-47, 48-47, 47-48.

The South African has studied footage of that meeting and modified his strategy as he looks to secure a ninth straight victory in UFC.

“There’s a lot of familiarities, but obviously we saw the mistakes we made and we made the adjustments,” he said.

“We saw areas where we are better than him and where we can do even better, and he saw the same with us.

“So we had to fix every mistake because now they know those mistakes, so they are going to try to exploit that.

“With this fight camp, what we worked on is everything that I did to do it better, quicker and more precise, more accurate.

“I can’t make small mistakes. The margin for error will be even smaller, so I need to be perfect on fight night.”