Sean Strickland is setting the terms for UFC 297 fight week.
After an ugly lead-up to the first UFC pay-per-view of 2024, the UFC middleweight champion issued a direct threat to Dricus du Plessis on his podcast The Man Dance on Monday, warning his South African challenger as UFC 297’s festivities in Toronto draw near.
“Remember when I attacked Dricus?” Strickland said.
“I actually sent him a message and I was like, ‘Dude listen, Dricus, we’re going to go try to murder each other, but if you bring that s*** up again, I will f****** stab you.’ Press conference, weigh-in — I just told Dricus. He was cool about it, he was cool about it. But again, I’m not telling you I don’t want to fight you, Dricus. I’m not saying you’re not a good fighter. I’m just saying that that’s a line that, when crossed, it transcends fighting. Like, if I go to Canada and you bring that up, well guess what? I’m going to go to jail, they’re going to deport me, and we spent eight weeks of training for no f****** reason.”
Strickland, 32, and du Plessis, 30, have been at odds since nearly coming to blows at UFC 297’s kickoff press conference in December, during which du Plessis invoked Strickland’s childhood trauma and promised, “You think your dad beat the s*** out of you? Your dad doesn’t have s*** on me … every childhood memory you have is going to come back when I’m in there with you.” One day later, tensions rose even further when Strickland leaped over a row of seats at the T-Mobile Arena and attacked du Plessis in a wild scene at UFC 296.
Strickland went on to address the situation in an emotional interview on This Past Weekend with Theo Von, in which Strickland tearfully recounted the trauma and abuse he suffered as a child and condemned du Plessis for comments he felt should’ve been “off limits.”
Speaking on his podcast with fellow UFC 297 competitor Chris Curtis, Strickland compared his reaction to du Plessus’ remarks to how Curtis would react if an opponent used a racial slur against him, explaining “that’s my card” someone could pull to set him off.
“If I had a f****** gun on me at that UFC fight — if I had a gun on me, bro, there was a chance, bro,” Strickland said. “There was a chance. Again, I don’t want to throw away my life for something dumb, and that’s why I’m always like, ‘Hey guys, let’s just be nice to each other.’
“Here’s the thing: I knew what was going to happen, I knew we were going to get broken up,” Strickland added. “So I was like, the best thing I could do is f****** 12-to-6 elbows to the back of the head, if I wanted to do the most damage. And this is f***** up, bro, this is really f***** up … if you look in the video, right at the very end, I went to go f****** bite [him]. If you slow down the video, you’ll see me grab his head and I went to take a chunk out of him. And I’m almost positive I got like a little bit of hair in my teeth, I remember. But I remember the reason why I didn’t fully commit, as I did it, I was like, ‘Sean, there’s no coming back from this, the moment you take a piece from him.’”
Du Plessus, for his part, remains unmoved by Strickland’s reaction to the pre-fight drama.
The fast-rising South African contender was unapologetic when asked about his comments on Monday’s episode of The MMA Hour and said Strickland’s reaction showed him only that the UFC champ was someone who could dish out trash talk but not take it himself. Du Plessis also disregarded any concerns over antics Strickland may pull this week in Toronto.
“I’ll be ready for whatever he tries with me,” du Plessis said on The MMA Hour. “When I go to these press conferences, I never plan, ‘Oh, I’m going to say this, say that!’ That’s not the way. It’s on the spot. I think it’s going to be a lot more civil, but maybe he comes out guns blazing, who knows? But I think it will be a lot more civil because in my mind, that first press conference was joking around. That was me having a lot of fun.
“I’m not in that zone anymore. I’m in the fight zone now. I’m ready to go. I’m here to win a world title. I’m not here to make jokes. I’m here to be a world champion.”
UFC 297 takes place Jan. 20 at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena. The five-round championship grudge match between Strickland and du Plessis headlines the event.
This story originally appeared on MMA fighting