Dricus Du Plessis is not interested in the racial narrative that’s being built up between him and Israel Adesanya.
UFC middleweight champion Adesanya (24-2 MMA, 13-2 UFC) was not pleased with Du Plessis’ comments on wanting to be the first real African champion – where he argued that Africa-born Adesanya, Francis Ngannou, and Kamaru Usman all won titles training outside of Africa.
Those comments made things personal for Adesanya, who was praying Du Plessis beats Robert Whittaker at UFC 290 – and that’s exactly what Du Plessis did. Adesanya took the opportunity to step into the octagon after the fight, lobbing multiple racial slurs towards Du Plessis (20-2 MMA, 6-0 UFC), who eventually just walked away from the face-off.
“Going with racial slurs which does not belong in sports,” Du Plessis said on Cameron Saaiman’s YouTube channel. “It doesn’t belong in the world, in my opinion. I do not want that a part of anything that I’m doing. This sport is so amazing, and it’s given so many people so much things.
“And bringing race, color, with racial slurs, all of that stuff into it, immediately made me like, ‘I don’t want to be a part of this.’ And that’s why I just walked away. I’m not going to engage in that because that is not the example I want to set for people. That is not what my message to anybody in the world is.”
Adesanya released a video slamming Du Plessis for allegedly not being ready for UFC 293 on Sept. 9 in Sydney, calling for Sean Strickland instead. While Du Plessis never said he’s definitely out of the fight, he did say he wants to sit back and smell the roses for at least a bit of time before thinking about what’s next.
“I’m definitely going to have to go on a little holiday,” Du Plessis said. “I’ve been active… You need to celebrate these moments. That was one thing that I thought when I landed on home soil again, everybody starts talking about, ‘OK, what’s next? Adesanya?’ And I’m like, ‘Whoa, I just beat Robert Whittaker. One of the greatest fighters ever, and one of my heroes. I’m not going to be talking even about the other fight right now.’ I want to – just for this week, give me to just celebrate this.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 290.