Israel Adesanya is happy for Dricus Du Plessis for winning the middleweight belt at UFC 297. Nonetheless, this doesn’t mean he would let his fellow African get away and keep the title for himself.

Du Plessis won over Sean Strickland last weekend, albeit it was a close fight, with the former winning via split decision. Fans and other MMA personalities like UFC CEO Dana White, Daniel Cormier, and Joe Rogan expressed their doubt over the win, but Adesanya is satisfied with the result. In line with this, the former two-time middleweight champ praised “Stillknocks.”

“It was nice to watch. I thought Dricus would take him,” Adesanya said on his YouTube channel. “I thought he would use his wrestling more in the middle of the fight, in the middle of the rounds, but he didn’t. He used it at the end, which was smart of him to steal the rounds.

“My guesstimate on watching this, (Rounds) 3, 4, 5 he took. Now, he is the fourth African champion in UFC history, so congrats to my African brother, Dricus Du Plessis. Legit, I’m happy for him.”

Despite celebrating the success of his fellow African, “The Last Stylebender” underlined that he would not let Du Plessis keep the belt.

“I actually like his story and whatnot, but he still did what he did, and I’m still going to test that ass,” said Adesanya.

This follows the fighter’s post after the UFC 297 bout, showing his interest in accepting Du Plessis’ callout, which is unsurprising. The two were originally expected to face each other at UFC 293, but Strickland instead fought “The Last Stylebender” and won the title. After this, the Nigerian-New Zealander announced that he’d take a long break from his MMA career.

Despite this, the two have a history and beef to settle on talks about who the real African is, making the bout irresistible for both of them. Du Plessis also believes that it is a fight fans would love to see at UFC 300 instead of a match against Khamzat Chimaev.

“That’s just the fight the fans want to see,” said Du Plessis. “I want to fight the best competition. There’s a lot of guys I’m going to be fighting, but the fans want to see Israel Adesanya vs. Dricus du Plessis. There’s a lot of hype that was already built on it.

“If the fans, there’s some way they start backtracking and the fans don’t really want to see Adesanya, we don’t do that fight. It’s fine to me. I don’t care who it is. But that’s just the fight on top of my head that I think the people want to see and would get a lot of people excited.”

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