Dricus Du Plessis Doesn’t Regret Sean Strickland Trash Talk

Dricus Du Plessis doesn’t believe he crossed the line by bringing up Sean Strickland’s traumatic childhood during their verbal back and forth.

“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.”