The brawl between Sean Strickland and Dricus Du Plessis could have been so much worse if there was a gun involved, the former revealed. According to the middleweight champ, he also texted the South African after the incident, giving him a warning that should he bring his insult again, he would “f***ing stab” him.
Strickland and Du Plessis will be meeting each other inside the cage this weekend at UFC 297. However, prior to their fight, the two already engaged in a melee while attending UFC 296 cage side. The incident came after “Stillknocks” made a comment involving Strickland’s traumatic childhood with his father. Later, the champ affirmed that the insult triggered him, causing “Tarzan” to revisit his past.
Now, weeks after the fight, the division champ shared more details about the incident, saying he sent the challenger a message with a warning.
“I actually talked to Dricus after that, and I was like Dricus, I mean, I like the guy, me and him are gonna have a f***ing war,” Strickland said on The Man Dance. “There is no other way that ends, someone’s getting knocked the f*** out… So I actually sent him a message, and I was like, ‘Dude, listen, Dricus, we’re gonna go try and murder each other. But if you bring that s**t up again, I will f***ing stab you.'”
According to the American MMA fighter, it could have been worse if he had been armed at the time when the altercation happened. Although Strickland didn’t finish his statement, he strongly suggested that he would shoot Du Plessis if he had a gun.
“I’m just saying that that’s a line that when crossed, it transcends fighting to like, if I have- it’s like- if I go to Canada, and you bring that up,” Strickland said. “Well guess what, I’m gonna go to jail, they’re going to deport me, and we spent eight weeks of training, doing for no f***ing reason.
“If I had a f***ing gun on me at that UFC fight,” Strickland said. “If I had a gun on me, bro, I mean, there’s a chance that, yeah, there’s a chance, bro.”
Du Plessis, nonetheless, seems to be indifferent in entertaining more trash talk with Strickland. According to the title challenger, his comments were just part of him “joking around” during the first press conference and that he’s “in the fight zone now” with the sole objective of securing the belt. Yet, the former middleweight and welterweight champ lambasted Strickland’s attitude and view toward trash talk.
“He’s a funny character,” Du Plessis said in his recent statement. “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.”
