Du Plessis detailed how he ended up sitting less than five feet from Strickland during UFC 296, and what his immediate reaction was to getting jumped by his future opponent.
Sean Strickland and Dricus Du Plessis had a little unsanctioned brawl on the floor of the T-Mobile Arena during UFC 296. Long long ago when the UFC was still striving for mainstream acceptance, something like that would have had major negative repercussions for both men. Now it’s considered perfectly acceptable pre-fight jostling — a nice bit of promotion for their UFC 297 title fight in Toronto.
The incident was packaged and promoted on the pay-per-view and across all UFC socials. Some even suspect the whole thing was staged, or at least purposefully instigated by seating them together. In a new interview with The Coach And The Casual, Du Plessis doubted the UFC was behind it.
“They put you together near each other on purpose, bro,” the interviewer said.
“No,” Du Plessis replied. “Well, I mean, I don’t think so.”
“Stillknocks” admits he was prepared for an incident following a tumultuous press conference where he brought up the physical abuse Strickland had suffered at the hands of his father growing up.
“Obviously, you know, this is a big mental game,” Du Plessis said. “This whole fight thing is a mental game for me. [Pressers are] all fun and games. But at the end of the day, that’s part of it. That’s part of the fight, what happens in that press conference. That’s a fight before the fight just like the weigh-in is. There’s nothing you could possibly say to throw me off. And I said cool. I’m gonna start chipping away and see where when I get this.”
“He looks like a guy that he’s not gonna be easy to freak because he dishes it out,” he continued. “The first thing I said [did it], and that was only the beginning. He’s so glad it was the end, I had so much more to go. Oh my God, I was so ready, and that was the first thing I said to this guy! I thought, ‘Oh, he’s acting,’ and then I saw like, ‘I really got him.’ Okay. I did all this homework, and I did all this preparation for this, and now the first thing I say [got him].”
From that point onward, you’d think keeping Sean and Dricus apart would have been a priority for UFC staff. So imagine the South African’s surprise when he realized they were seated within five feet of each other at UFC 296 — a silly oversight on the part of UFC CEO Dana White himself.
“We walk in, and I look at my ticket,” Du Plessis recalled. “This is my first time sitting cageside. I live in South Africa, I don’t come to all the events. This is your row, row C, Seat number 4 or 5, whatever. And I go, okay. And I see that’s Sean Strickland over there. I’m assuming they’re gonna [put me on the other side]. And the guy goes, no. You’re on that side. I immediately realized, like, he’s in row A, then it’s B, and C, meaning we are sitting two rows apart. We even had the same seat number. So he’s literally sitting right in front of me.”
“Dude, that’s gotta be set up,” the interviewer said with a laugh.
“They tell me the cameras are gonna be on you guys now, and I obviously know this is his domain,” Dricus said. “They’re definitely booing me. And I just went, cool. I’m just gonna join them with the boos and boo him. I’m like, cool, I’m with you guys, I’m booing him too. And as I did it, I could see him on the screen, I just saw the he was so irritated.”
“Then he turned around, and he did the whole gun thing. He was just so frustrated, and I said, ‘Listen, even with that gun you’re missing.’ And he kinda looked around, and I said, ‘Yeah, look in front of you before I beat your ass.’”
Now I understand why you have a 33% finish rate, you hit like a girl, also 20 January the security won’t be there to save your life when I’m on top. #rentfree
— Dricus Du Plessis (@dricusduplessis) December 17, 2023
“We were looking at each other, he said something, I said something,” he said. “And it was almost like, okay, that’s the end of the storm. And I turned, still looking at him, and he turned … and then he just jumped. I thought it was over, and he just jumped. Here we go.”
“It was crazy because we were in between a lot of fighters. It was so crazy, the vibe after the whole thing happened. Usually, if you’re in a social setting like that and something like that happens, some people are crying. But you just see all the fighters like ‘Yeaaah! Yeah!’”
Du Plessis wasn’t shaken by the incident at all, and stuck around to keep watching the fights. There’s no plans, he says, of involving the police or courts or any of that.
“I mean, when people sue each other in South Africa, that’s for, like, real stuff, not little stuff,” he said. “If he hit me with a chair from behind or whatever, that is causes for some concern. But it was a good old fashioned scrap. It was mutual combat. Yeah.”