Dricus Du Plessis of South Africa speaks to the media after beating Sean Strickland of the United States and winning the middleweight title during the UFC 297 event at Scotiabank Arena on January 20, 2024 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada It’s common place in United Fighting Championship (UFC) to trash talk your opposition before a big fight, but did Dricus du Plessis cross any lines before his latest victory? Photo: Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images/AFP
It’s common place in United Fighting Championship (UFC) to trash talk your opposition before a big fight, but did Dricus du Plessis cross any lines before he defended his middleweight title against Israel Adesanya?
And where exactly do you draw the line?
In the lead-up to the fight, Du Plessis made it his goal to antagonise Adesanya — which even brought the former champion to tears in their pre-fight presser.
Despite his considerable size, Du Plessis shares many characteristics with a mosquito. The man simply will not give up when he feels he’s touched on a sensitive topic.
New Zealander Adesanya is Nigerian-born, and he feels strongly about his heritage.
In the presser, Adesanya said he hoped to bring his reclaimed middleweight title back to Nigeria, and Du Plessis chimed in with “Will you be taking your servants?”. This was presumably a dig at the fact that Adesanya is now very wealthy and does not have a genuine connection with the regular citizens of Nigeria.
It started a heated exchange, before Adesanya told Du Plessis to “Shut the f**k up, you don’t know anything about my story. Don’t speak about my story if you don’t know my story.”
Du Plessis then kept repeating: “I don’t care about your story.”
From there it devolved into a pure insult trade, with the pair growing tired of the pointless argument.
A few minutes later, Adesanya became emotional as the tears began to roll down his face as he said: “He touched a subject there, because I do this for my family. I do this for the people I love, and I will fight for you forever. I’m a human being, I can cry and whip your ass at the same time. Sunday, I’m going to kill your dream b**ch.”
It’s a topic Du Plessis has been latching onto for some time when it comes to 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 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”.
The main theme here, is that Du Plessis believes he is ‘more African’ than Adesanya. And it’s a point Du Plessis repeatedly attempted to drive home in many exchanges with Adesanya.
After the fight, with Du Plessis retaining his belt — the pair seemed to exchange a few heartfelt words as the hatchet had seemingly been buried.
It’s not the first time a fight involving Du Plessis has followed that script.
Du Plessis did much the same thing to Sean Strickland, whom he fought and beat earlier this year to be crowned the first South African UFC middleweight champion.
Before the fight, Du Plessis referred in a press conference to the abuse Strickland was a victim of during his childhood, which brought up the question — what exactly is the limit to the insults routinely hurled at opponents in the sport?
Strickland, quite justifiably took exception to Du Plessis’s comments.
However, after the bout — both fighters seemed to have made peace with each other. Du Plessis even began to sing the praises of Strickland after he defeated his opponent.
It begs the question then, was it all just a show?
Both Strickland and Adesanya seemed genuinely upset over the nasty comments made by Du Plessis.
If it was a show, it was an extremely convincing one, and in that case some of these UFC fighters could easily land jobs in Hollywood after their fighting days are over.
Otherwise, Du Plessis is just a master antagoniser and no topic will ever be taboo. Perhaps that’s why he’s the champion.
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