Sean Strickland, who previously had a brawl with Dricus du Plessis at UFC 296, has now expressed respect for his opponent ahead of their main event clash at UFC 297, blaming their previous conflict on UFC bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley’s trash talk, and criticizing former UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya for his fight predictions.
So, a few weeks back, Sean Strickland was literally leaping over furniture to land a punch on Dricus du Plessis. This happened right in the middle of the crowd at UFC 296. Fast forward to now, and we’re just a few days away from their main event showdown at UFC 297.
And guess what? Strickland seems to have let go of his grudge against du Plessis. He’s even gone as far as asking the Toronto crowd to cheer for his opponent on Saturday night. Quite a shift, considering he’d threatened to stab du Plessis if he dared to bring up his childhood trauma again. That’s the very topic that sparked their brawl last December.
But now, it’s not du Plessis who’s on the receiving end of Strickland’s ire. Instead, it’s former UFC middleweight champ Israel Adesanya who’s catching flak. Strickland was pretty animated about it too.
He had this to say about Dricus: “Here’s the thing, he ain’t no Izzy. Dricus likes to fight.” Strickland was shouting at this point. “He likes to fight, and he’s a hell of a fight. You know what that means? We’re going to be up close and personal, really getting into it.”
Strickland continued, “I hope after we’re done, win or lose, we’re bloody and we’ve put on a show for you guys. Applaud him. Encourage him. We want a war!”
Despite their past brawl and pre-fight threats, Strickland insisted he never really had any beef with du Plessis. He even blamed UFC bantamweight champ Sean O’Malley for starting the trash talk at a separate press conference. Strickland had no issues with du Plessis, aside from that incident and the crowd attack. He even praised du Plessis for getting under his skin during their previous encounter.
Strickland said, “Here’s the thing, it was never personal. Sean O’Malley said some stuff he knows nothing about. I go hard on everybody. You don’t think I deserve some backlash? I go hard on all of you.”
He added, “I’m proud of the guy. You don’t see me lose character often, but he got me there.”
Instead of lunging across the table, Strickland extended a hand to du Plessis. They agreed to put on a memorable show for the Canadian crowd on Saturday. “Real talk, me and Dricus, we’re going to try to kill each other for you guys,” Strickland said. “Dricus, can we agree to fight to the death? To the death! Respect him for that.”
The middleweights shook hands, seemingly burying the hatchet. But the same can’t be said for Adesanya. He’d picked du Plessis to win the fight at UFC 297 and beat Strickland to become the new middleweight champion. Strickland didn’t take kindly to the prediction. He sent Adesanya a harsh reminder of how their fight played out.
“Listen Izzy, the guy, the cringelord, the pup play himself. Screw Izzy,” Strickland said. “I could have taken Izzy down and beat his ass on the ground, but I chose to stand with him like a man. What did he do the whole fight? Run away. Izzy, shut your mouth.”