Dricus Du Plessis of South Africa celebrates with the middleweight title belt following his win over Sean Strickland of the United States during the UFC 297 event at Scotiabank Arena on January 20, 2024 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada FILE. The title fight between champion Dricus du Plessis (pictured) and Israel Adesanya in the UFC Middleweight division is set to be an extremely tense affair. Picture: Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images/AFP
If the stare down in their press conference is anything to go by, the title fight between champion Dricus du Plessis and Israel Adesanya in the UFC Middleweight division will be an extremely tense affair.
The fighters came out on stage for their pre-fight press conference on Wednesday, and proceeded to stare each other down for the entire time they were on stage.
The video was posted by UFC on its Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) page, as the highlight of the UFC 305 presser.
The video was captioned: “No love lost!”
The 30-year-old Du Plessis became the first South African world champion at UFC 297 when he beat Sean Strickland in Toronto in January.
Strickland and Du Plessis went the full five rounds, and the South African was adjudged the winner by a single point to dethrone the champion.
In fact, it was the first time that a South African had fought for a UFC title.
"This is just the beginning of the championship reign and the Dricus du Plessis era,” said Du Plessis at the time.
The new champion went on to say he would like to defend his title against New Zealand’s Nigeria-born Adesanya.
In July last year at UFC 290, there had been existing tension between the pair as Du Plessis had said he will become the first “born, bred and trained African champion", which the Nigerian-born champion Adesanya, who now lives and trains in New Zealand (who was champion at the time) clearly didn’t like.
During a heated exchange after the SA fighter won his fight at the event, Adesanya farcically suggested Du Plessis do a DNA test to find out “just how African he is”.
At that point Du Plessis, had enough and walked away to resume his celebrations. | Additional reporting by AFP