Former three-time UFC title challenger Chael Sonnen offered his take on the awkward confrontation between middleweight champion Israel Adesanya and Dricus Du Plessis at UFC 290.
Stillknocks’ shocked fight fans around the world with his incredible second-round knockout of perennial contender Robert Whittaker inside T-Mobile Arena on Saturday night. With the victory, Dricus Du Plessis secured himself a date against ‘The Last Stylebender’ later this year in what will be the South African’s first UFC title opportunity. In the midst of celebrating his victory, Du Plessis was joined inside the Octagon by Israel Adesanya, where the two engaged in what would quickly become one of the most intense staredowns of all time.
Adesanya got right into Du Plessis’ face and began hurling a series of racially-charged insults at his next opponent. “This is my African brother right here, let’s go n*gga, what’s up b*tch?” Adesanya yelled during their UFC 290 face-off. “Let’s go n*gga, here n*gga. Wassup n*gga? Yeah, my African brother!”
Israel Adesanya goes off on Dricus Du Plessis and tells him to take a DNA test to prove he's African.
pic.twitter.com/HtrcTVLRfs— No Jumper (@nojumper) July 9, 2023
Sharing his thoughts on the intense encounter, Chael Sonnen suggested that ‘Stylebender’ was doing his job by selling a fight between himself and Dricus Du Plessis. However, ‘The American Gangster’ was quick to point out that Adesanya’s response was genuine.
“Adesanya’s got a job to do,” Sonnen said on his YouTube channel. “Adesanya has a job, which is to make you – the public – as interested in his next fight as he possibly can… It’s a game he is willing to play. And he got in the ring and he used very strong language to make his point, but he was very serious and it was in his eyes, and it was in his face, and he meant it, and it was real. It was powerful and he let us – the audience – in on it.”
Chael Sonnen Defends Dricus Du Plessis’ Comments About Israel Adesanya
The racial tones surrounding Adesanya and Du Plessis can be traced back to comments made by ‘Stillknocks’ that questioned the middleweight champ’s African heritage. Du Plessis, who has lived in South Africa all his life, also suggested that he would be the UFC’s first “real” African champion. Adesanya was understandably infuriated by the comments, but Du Plessis’ original statement has since been twisted by fans and the media, turning their title tilt into a war over race rather than about being the best middleweight fighter in the world.
Adesanya leaned into that narrative during their UFC 290 confrontation, but it was clearly never the intention of Dricus Du Plessis to make their rivalry about race.
“We were witnessing [Dricus Du Plessis] realizing for the first time ‘This guy doesn’t get it. This guy is actually mad. This guy is actually offended, this guy doesn’t understand. I’m not in that spot. I’m just trying to get the match.’ And I just understood it on a deeper level, where people were willing to say or where people were willing to go with that or where they were trying to pull Du Plessis or pull some of Du Plessis’ comments,” Sonnen continued. “
And they simply weren’t true. There were a number of things Du Plessis said, that he most certainly did not say. And he did make it about nationality, that’s true. And you will find the African comment, that’s true. But he didn’t make it about race, that is not true. And that’s not fair” (h/t MMA News).
Israel Adesanya is slated for a return at UFC 293 in September when the promotion returns to Australia. If that turns out to be the night he defends his title against Dricus Du Plessis, it only gives ‘Stillknocks’ eight weeks to recover and prepare for the biggest fight of his mixed martial arts career.