UFC 297: Just Business? Sean Strickland and Dricus Du Plessis Break Down Their Beef

Sean Strickland (left) squares off with Dricus Du Plessis Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

The feud between Sean Strickland and Dricus Du Plessis has been somewhat exaggerated.

“He’s a good dude,” Strickland said of the man he will defend his middleweight belt against in the main event of Saturday’s UFC 297 card in Toronto.

“From my side, there’s no bad blood at all,” the South African challenger told B/R. “I have a lot of respect for Sean as a fighter and even as a person.”

You could be forgiven for assuming Strickland and Du Plessis detest each other, though.

After a heated pre-fight press conference that saw the pair exchange vicious trash talk, they came to blows in the crowd at last month’s UFC 296 card in Las Vegas—an incident that quickly went viral on social media and supercharged interest in their upcoming clash.

However, things are not always as they seem.

“Did I look angry during that fight?” Strickland said with a laugh. “I was actually surprisingly happy the whole time. I wish I didn’t like him more.”

“You wouldn’t expect that from the UFC middleweight champion of the world, but at the end of the day, we are still fighters,” Du Plessis said. “We’re still a very different breed of people, and when that happened, there wasn’t even a thought process. It was just, here we go, it’s fight or flight right now, and I always choose to fight. It was exciting.”

Some fans may be disappointed to learn that what briefly looked like one of the fiercest grudge matches in recent memory is, in fact, a pretty routine title fight.

However, those fans can take comfort in the fact that Du Plessis doesn’t seem to need any extra motivation to leave it all in the Octagon on Saturday night.

“At the end of the day, you can be the nicest guy in the world or the biggest a–hole in the world, I’m coming in there to kill you have if I have to,” he said.

The same is clearly true for Strickland.

“I don’t think Dricus dies easy,” he told B/R. “I don’t think I die easy. I think it’s gonna be a 25-minute war. It’s gonna be such a good fight.”

Strickland won the UFC middleweight title in Australia last September when he defeated legendary champion Israel Adesanya by unanimous decision in one of the biggest upsets in recent memory.

Du Plessis, who was originally supposed to challenge Adesanya before Strickland, was as surprised by the outcome of the fight as everybody else.

“Obviously, I didn’t think he could do it,” he said. “Nobody thought he could do it, but he went out there and he fought the perfect fight.”

“He had one of the best performances of his life,” the South African added. “It showed that he can step up to the plate. The lights didn’t get to him, the moment didn’t get to him. He went down there and he did what he had to do, and you can’t not respect that.”

Strickland, on the other hand, believes Du Plessis might be a tougher test than Adesanya, who was long considered one of the top pound-for-pound fighters on the planet.

“I think [Adesanya’s] a better striker, but Dricus is a better fighter,” the 32-year-old said. “There’s a difference. Izzy is definitely better than him, but Dricus is tougher.”

“When I hit Izzy, boom, Izzy’s like I don’t really like this. You hit Dricus and he’ll just come forward. It’s just a way harder, longer, war of a fight.”

While Strickland and Du Plessis share a mutual respect for each other’s skills, they could not be more different when it comes to their motivation.

For the champion, who has become one of the most talked about fighters in MMA over the last year, keeping the title is simply about making as much money as possible.

“I’m just in it for the money, dude,” he said. “I like to train, it keeps me sane, but I’m just in it for the money.

“I’ve been the most active fighter at middleweight. All I do is fight, so just pay me money. You want me to put down the fork, get up back on the treadmill, just pay me money.”

Du Plessis is also motivated by financial gain, but he strives to help put his homeland on the map as well.

South Africa has produced some talented fighters in recent years, such as Don Madge, Cameron Saaiman and Bokang Masunyane, but no fighter has brought a major world title back home so far.

Du Plessis, 30, aims to change that and inspire his countrymen in the process.

“All those fighters, including myself, we have proved that South Africa has amazing fighters,” he said. “Yeah, the sport’s young [there], and there’s not a lot of expertise in South Africa, but as young as the sport is in the country, to have somebody fight for a world title is absolutely incredible.”

“I have teammates that are gonna be alongside me fighting for world titles very, very soon in the UFC,” he added. “I can name three, four guys that are ready for UFC right now, just needing the opportunity.”

The odds for Strickland and Du Plessis’ middleweight title fight are razor close. As of Thursday, DraftKings has the challenger listed as a slight -140 favorite, while the champion is a slight underdog at +105.

No matter who comes out on top, it sounds as though the pair will be happy to put their rivalry to bed.

“I’ll offer him a handshake,” Du Plessis said. “Like I said, it’s nothing personal. This is business.”

“You’re fighting another man, there’s all the respect,” Strickland said.