Sean Strickland threatened to stab Dricus du Plessis if the latter talked about his childhood trauma again.
On Saturday, January 20, Strickland will defend his middleweight title for the first time when he meets number two-ranked Du Plessis in the UFC 297 main event. There will be added motivation for both fighters, as they’ve established an intensely heated rivalry.
During the UFC 296 fight week, Strickland and Du Plessis participated in a seasonal press conference featuring several upcoming headliners. Things quickly escalated when ‘Stillknocks’ referenced the UFC middleweight champion’s abusive childhood while talking trash.
Several days later, the UFC 297 headliners fought in the crowd at UFC 296, adding tons of publicity for their upcoming fight. During the latest episode of The Man Dance, Strickland had this to say about allegedly messaging Du Plessis after their physical altercation:
“I actually talked to Dricus [du Plessis] after that [physical altercation at UFC 296]…I like the guy. Me and him are going to have a f*cking war. We’re gonna have a f*cking death match. There’s no other way that ends. Somebody is getting knocked the f*cked out..I actually sent him a f*cking message, and I was like, ‘Dude, listen, Dricus, we’re gonna go try to murder each other, but if you bring that sh*t up again, I will f*cking stab you.”
Strickland continued by sending another warning to the South African-born fighter and claiming Du Plessis understood where he was coming from:
“He was cool about it. Again, I’m not telling you I don’t want to fight you, Dricus. I’m not saying you’re not a good fighter. I’m just saying that’s a line that when crossed, it transcends fighting to like if I go to Canada and you bring that up, well guess what? I’m going to go to jail, they’re going to deport me, and we spent eight weeks of training for no f*cking reason.”
Watch Sean Strickland talk about Dricus du Plessis, their UFC 296 brawl, and more below:
Sean Strickland talks about attempting to elbow the back of Dricus du Plessis’ head and bite a “chunk out of him”
The UFC 296 brawl between Sean Strickland and Dricus du Plessis didn’t last long, but they had a few moments to damage each other. According to Strickland, he attempted to elbow the back of Du Plessis’ head and bite him, which he revealed by saying this during the previously mentioned podcast episode:
“I knew what was going to happen. I knew it was going to get broken up, so the best thing I could do is f*cking 12-6 elbows to the back of the head if I want to do the most damage…If you look in the video, right at the very end, I went to go f*cking bite. If you slow down the video, you’ll see me grab his head, and I went to go take a chunk out of him. I’m almost positive I got a little bit of hair in my teeth.”
Strickland followed up by talking about why he decided not to bite Du Plessis:
“The reason I didn’t fully commit, as I did it, I was like, ‘Sean, there’s no coming back from this. The moment you take a piece of him.”
Sean Strickland is riding high on confidence after surprisingly dethroning Israel Adesanya for the UFC middleweight title. As for Dricus du Plessis, the South African is confident he will emerge victorious on Saturday after winning his first six UFC fights, including his latest against former champion Robert Whittaker.
