For Dricus du Plessis, his trash talk period with Sean Strickland is finally over. After triggering the champ with his recent comments, the challenger said he’d be more serious now the next time he faces the enemy, as his sole objective is to get the belt and nothing else.
Du Plessis will be challenging Strickland for his belt this weekend at UFC 297, but the two are still expected to make some appearances prior to that. This might excite some fans, especially after the recent meeting of the two ended with some nasty trash talks and a melee. To recall, Du Plessis included Strickland’s traumatic childhood to attach the champ in his recent comment, which later triggered the champ to pounce on him while cage-side at UFC 296.
“Stillknocks,” however, wants to set fans’ expectations, saying this might not happen again as his focus now is his upcoming fight. For the South African, his remarks were just part of him “joking around” during the first press conference. And now that his bout is approaching, the fighter has shifted his focus on the belt.
“When I go to these press conferences, I never plan, ‘Oh, I’m going to say this, say that!’” Du Plessis said on The MMA Hour. “That’s not the way. It’s on the spot. I think it’s going to be a lot more civil, but maybe he comes out guns blazing, who knows? But I think it will be a lot more civil because in my mind, that first press conference was joking around. That was me having a lot of fun. I’m not in that zone anymore. I’m in the fight zone now. I’m ready to go. I’m here to win a world title. I’m not here to make jokes. I’m here to be a world champion.”
Despite this, the 30-year-old fighter has no regret in the things he said against the opponent. Although Du Plessis expressed sympathy for the young version of Strickland, he underscored that this past experience doesn’t give him the pass to be the bully in the business.
“Obviously, it’s terrible that it happened to him, but it did,” said Du Plessis. “Don’t project onto others what you don’t want to happen to you. That’s the way it is. He disrespected me, disrespected my coach, and I won’t let that slide…
“He’s a funny character. I actually quite enjoy him. The hypocrisy is what made me — that was the one area where people could lose respect for Sean Strickland, because he’s always unapologetically himself. But as soon as he got his own medicine, as soon as he was on the receiving end for the very first time, when I got on that mic, we saw him backpedal and try to play for sympathy. He wanted sympathy. He was acting like he had that victim mentality immediately. You can’t do that if you say the things you say. Talking about people who can’t dodge busses on a fighter who died. Is that not over the line? You, Mr. Moral Compass, doesn’t decide where the line is. He doesn’t have the right to decide where that line is. Now, all of a sudden, the line is where he wants it to be? No. I don’t think so.”
