Dricus Du Plessis of South Africa is interviewed following his victory in a middleweight title bout against Sean Strickland of the United States during the UFC 297 event at Scotiabank Arena on January 20, 2024 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Picture: Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images/AFP
Dricus du Plessis is almost as divisive as he is successful in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), and his latest triumph over the weekend has once more left his fans and critics sworn across battle lines.
Of course the majority of Du Plessis’s fans are South Africans, but globally his supporters are more difficult to find.
There are also those that have criticised his fighting style which is not commonplace in the UFC. Du Plessis has a solid grounding in a number of types of fighting styles including judo, wrestling and kickboxing.
In fact, Du Plessis began his career in kickboxing before moving over to Extreme Fighting Championship (EFC) before finally ending up in UFC.
Despite, or perhaps due to his combination of fighting expertise, Du Plessis his risen through the ranks to be crowned middleweight UFC champion.
“In my mind, I fought for this belt.”
— SuperSport 🏆 (@SuperSportTV) August 18, 2024
Dricus du Plessis looks back on a historic night in Perth at #UFC305 and shares his game plan for the fight. pic.twitter.com/1ieYsHYuIO
Still, his pre-fight tactics always involve antagonising his opposition with seemingly no topic off limits.
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.
Du Plessis beat Nigerian-born New Zealander Israel Adesanya over the weekend, to defend his middleweight title for the first time after being crowned the champion earlier this year.
In the pre-fight presser last week, 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.”
UFC chief executive Dana White said before the Adesanya fight, that if Du Plessis won - the South African would make his next title defence on home turf.
Details of the fight are still to be confirmed, but American Sean Strickland - who is reported to be the number one contender - already came out and said he won’t be coming to South Africa.
The tone deaf Strickland described South Africa as a ‘s***t hole country with high levels of inequality.’
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