Dricus Du Plessis welcomes any heat that Sean Strickland wants to bring to their feud.
A month before Du Plessis is set to challenge Strickland in Toronto for the UFC middleweight championship, the two found themselves in a brief brawl at UFC 296 on Saturday in Las Vegas.
Du Plessis fended off the attacking Strickland before security swarmed the reigning middleweight champion and afterwards, Du Plessis could only react in amusement when asked about the incident.
“I’m 5-0 in the T-Mobile Arena and tonight I officially became 6-0, so I’m happy with that,” Du Plessis told the UFC’s Megan Olivi in a post-event interview. “Getting my money’s worth here at the show, but yeah, I mean it’s probably not a good example but here we are. Things happen and nobody got hurt, all is good.”
Fans should be hoping that Du Plessis did not suffer an injury as he is scheduled to fight Strickland in the main event of UFC 297 on Jan. 20. To hype up the first quarter of 2024, Strickland and Du Plessis were part of a seasonal press conference on Friday that saw them exchange insults.
Strickland didn’t sound impressed with Du Plessis’ choice of words and he called him out on social media:
I go hard on everyone I know this, izzy mouth feeding his dog, Dricus kissing his coach and grabbing his cup. Omally talking about sharing his wife in a podcast.
You’re a man, on a world stage doing this in public
And what do you pick?
“You got abused as a kid ha”
— Sean Strickland (@SStricklandMMA) December 17, 2023
If Strickland’s feelings were hurt, Du Plessis is unapologetic about it.
“I don’t really care how he feels,” Du Plessis said. “I don’t care about him being triggered. He goes and he says whatever he wants and everybody’s just used to him, ‘Oh, I can say whatever I want,’ and now this one thing, this soft spot’s a trigger for him and now we’re not allowed to say it. If you want to dish it out, you have to be able to take it. The fact that he’s triggered, I don’t give a damn about that.”
Du Plessis enters the January title bout on an eight-fight win streak, including wins in his first six UFC appearances. He scored a dominant second-round knockout of former champion Robert Whittaker at UFC 290 to secure his spot.
The South African standout has long stated his intention to become UFC champion and he shrugged off the suggestion that the growing grudge between him and Strickland is providing any added motivation.
“To me, not at all,” Du Plessis said. “Right now he needs to get calm in his head, he needs to regain his composure. I know I’m not the champ yet, so I shouldn’t be really giving the champ advice, but that would be my advice. Gather your composure, be calm. You make mistakes when you’re not calm. I’m cool as a cucumber, I’m feeling absolutely great.
“The fact that he’s triggered only plays to my advantage. I can’t believe how easy it was to mentally trigger him. I thought, here’s Sean Strickland, he’s just bashing everybody, ranting about everything and everybody. One little sentence and the man loses his mind. Shows you how easily mentally he’ll be broken.”
