Things have gotten personal atop Ultimate Fighting Championship’s (UFC) Middleweight division.
The promotion’s 2024 seasonal press conference brought the three upcoming pay-per-view main event title fight participants together for UFC 296 fight week last month (Dec. 15, 2023). In doing so, bad blood between the champion, Sean Strickland, and top contender, Dricus Du Plessis, unexpectedly boiled over ahead of UFC 297 this month (Sat., Jan. 20, 2024).
South Africa’s Du Plessis struck a cord in the champion when he targeted Strickland’s upbringing and abuse from his father. “You think your dad beat the s—t out of you? Your dad doesn’t have s—t on me, every childhood memory you have is going to come back when I’m in there with you,” Du Plessis said at the presser, prompting a handful of slurs and retorts from Strickland before the pair got into a scuffle the following day. Reflecting on the two-day experience, Strickland admits a line was indeed crossed by his rival.
“There’s some things that are off limits,” Strickland said on This Past Weekend (h/t MMA Fighting). “You don’t really talk about a man’s wife, you don’t talk about a man’s kids, and you don’t about a kid being abused. These things are all off-limits. Once he crossed that … I tried to f—king ignore it. I was boiling.
“Whenever Dricus goes on there and he jokes about that s—t, dude, you have no idea,” he continued. “I’ll f—king kill you, you have no idea. I think the issue is, too, when you’re a kid and you’re made to be a victim your whole life, as an adult, you’re like, never again. I’ll f—king kill you.”
Strickland’s appearance on This Past Weekend was an emotional one overall. The Middleweight titlist went on to discuss his past in more depth with host, Theo Von, which led to Strickland breaking down during a story about his home life impacting his time at school. Du Plessis will be Strickland’s first fight since winning the title by unanimous decision against Israel Adesanya at UFC 293 in September 2023 (watch highlights).
Du Plessis has since defended his comments towards his next opponent and seeks his sixth straight UFC victory by capturing gold.
“I don’t really care how he feels,” Du Plessis said. “I don’t care about him being triggered. He says whatever he wants, and I can say wherever I want. And now there’s one thing that that’s a soft spot, a trigger for him. And now we’re not allowed to say anything? Man, if you want to dish it out, you have to be able to take it, but yeah, the fact that he’s triggered, I don’t give a damn about that.”