Dricus Du Plessis Explains Why He Walked Away from Adesanya at UFC 290

Du Plessis: "I Don't Want to be a Part of This"

Fresh off of his stunning TKO win over Robert Whittaker, Dricus Du Plessis was in the Octagon to do his post-fight interview but current Middleweight champ- Israel Adesanya joined Du Plessis in the cage to trade some insults and racial slurs, Du Plessis decided to just walk away after being interrupted by Adesanya.

The heated exchange stemmed from Du Plessis’ comments earlier in the year when he said, “Did those belts ever go to Africa? As far as I know, they came to America and New Zealand. I’m going to take a belt to Africa. I’m the African fighter in the UFC, myself and Cameron (Saaiman), we breathe African air. We wake up in Africa every day. We train in Africa, we’re African born, we’re African raised. We still reside in Africa, we train out of Africa. That’s an African champion and that’s who I’ll be.” Read more here.

Du Plessis joined UFC Bantamweight- Cameron Saaiman on Saaiman’s YouTube channel to discuss many topics, and one of which was the topic of Du Plessis vs. Adesanya. Saaiman brought up Adesanya’s behavior and on how he thought Adesanya didn’t seem clear-headed, as his comments since UFC 290 have been heavily criticized. Du Plessis gave his take on Adesanya’s recent behavior, “There’s people looking up to you as a champion, you’re behaving like a child and a clown, behave like a man. You are an example to people all over the world, one of the biggest stars in sports.”

Du Plessis then explained why he decided to walk away from Adesanya, “Doing something, going with racial slurs, which does not belong in sports. It doesn’t belong in the world in my opinion. I do not want that a part of anything that I’m doing. This sport is so amazing, and it’s given so many people so much things. And bringing race, color, with racial slurs, all of that stuff into it, immediately made me like ‘I don’t want to be a part of this,’ and that’s why I just walked away. I’m not going to engage in that because that is not the example I want to set for people. That is not what my message to anybody in the world is.”

It was expected that Du Plessis (20-2 MMA, 6-0 UFC) was going to challenge Adesanya (24-2 MMA, 13-2 UFC) for the Middleweight title, but Adesanya posted a video aimed at Du Plessis and claimed that Du Plessis wasn’t going to be ready in time for UFC 293 (Event targeted for Adesanya’s title defense), so now it appears that Adesanya will defend against Sean Strickland (27-5 MMA, 14-5 UFC) the bout has yet to be finalized but is reportedly targeted, see video below.

Dickless DuPussay. pic.twitter.com/UQwRF2a5tU

— Israel Adesanya (@stylebender) July 20, 2023