Dricus Du
Plessis doesn’t believe he crossed the line by bringing up
Sean
Strickland’s traumatic childhood during their verbal back and
forth.
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“Stillknocks” is scheduled to challenge Strickland for the
middleweight title at
UFC 297 on Jan. 20 at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto. The bad
blood between the two started with a seasonal press conference last
month where Du Plessis brought up Strickland’s abusive childhood.
Du Plessis vowed to put on a worse beating on Strickland than his
own father after the champ joked about a sexual relationship
between the South African and his coach.
Strickland subsequently admitted that he was triggered by the
comments, leading to him
attacking Du Plessis while attending
UFC 296 the next day. However, Du Plessis doesn’t regret
anything he said to Strickland.
“I don’t regret anything. I said what I said. Listen, if you’re
dishing it out, you’re going to get it. I’m not going to keep on
hammering on it, but I stand by what I said. I did not joke about
it. What happened was fact. I stated fact. He joked about it, in
previous interviews. I didn’t joke about it; I stated the facts.
Obviously, it had a massive effect on him. I won’t be hammering on
that because it’s not necessary. I got the results I wanted. I
don’t need to hammer on one thing,” the 32-year-old said on
“The MMA Hour.”
“Obviously, it’s terrible that it happened to him, but it did.
Don’t project onto others what you don’t want to happen to you.
That’s the way it is. He disrespected me, disrespected my coach,
and I won’t let that slide. So, take that and now we’re on a clean
page. We start over. It’s strictly business. Nothing’s personal. I
have no animosity towards him. I said what I said, what happened,
happened, there’s no animosity, from my side at least. I’m here to
do my business. I’m here to win a fight.”
Strickland subsequently went on a podcast with comedian Theo Von
where he
shared intimate details about his childhood trauma and also
said that Du Plessis crossed a line. However, the South African
believes Strickland, who is known for his unabashed opinions,
doesn’t get to decide where to draw the line when it comes to trash
talk.
“He had a lot to say about Khalil
Rountree, and he said how weak of a man Khalil is for crying,”
Du Plessis said. “He did the exact same thing, just on a bigger
stage. Not talking about somebody’s wife. I’m assuming because he
has somebody in his life now, that became a thing. He didn’t care
about Ian
Garry’s wife when he said what he said. It wasn’t his place to
say anything, but whatever.
“He’s a funny character. I actually quite enjoy him. The hypocrisy
is what made me — that was the one area where people could lose
respect for Sean Strickland, because he’s always unapologetically
himself. But as soon as he got his own medicine, as soon as he was
on the receiving end for the very first time, when I got on that
mic, we saw him backpedal and try to play for sympathy. He wanted
sympathy. He was acting like he had that victim mentality
immediately. You can’t do that if you say the things you say.
Talking about people who can’t dodge busses on a fighter who died.
Is that not over the line? You, Mr. Moral Compass, doesn’t decide
where the line is. He doesn’t have the right to decide where that
line is. Now, all of a sudden, the line is where he wants it to be?
No. I don’t think so.”