Dricus du Plessis’ victory over Sean Strickland in Sydney on Sunday was so utterly dominant that the American even admitted in the octagon afterwards that the South African had “kicked my a** fair and square”.
The 31-year-old from Pretoria seemed to be in another zone at UFC 312. I felt that he produced a much more polished performance this time around compared to the first Strickland bout in Toronto last year January, where the American – and many other MMA experts – felt that Du Plessis was fortunate to win on a split decision.
There was absolutely no doubt about the result this time around in Sydney, though. Although Strickland got in a few worthy shots in the first round, Du Plessis stalked his prey for the rest of the fight.
He was just so much slicker, composed and accurate than his opponent, with those kicks to the head particularly brutal, while a heavy punch broke a nose as well.
It almost looked like Strickland wasn’t in prime shape for the bout – but perhaps that was more due to Du Plessis being at the top of his game in every respect.
It was virtually an exhibition from the latter, with Strickland maybe making the mistake of engaging in a punching bout with Du Plessis – although the South African is also mean as a grappler on the floor, due to his judo, wrestling and rugby background.
Strickland gave Du Plessis his flowers on X as well, posting: “Dricus, f**king hats off, man. Hell of a fight, broke my nose in like six places. The silver lining is my nose is so broken that it will be really easy to reset. That was a new experience.”
Du Plessis came up with arguably his finest display, and now the UFC middleweight champion is set to square off next with either Khamzat Chimaev of Chechnya, or possibly Brazilian Alex Pereira.
Du Plessis’ slogan, ‘Hulle weet nie wat ons weet nie’ (they don’t know what we know), has seen him earn almost cult status in South Africa, with many other sportspeople echoing his line, while Springboks such as captain Siya Kolisi and Eben Etzebeth was even part of his entourage for his fight against Israel Adesanya in Perth last August.
The man himself has also been a flag-bearer at Bok Tests, and was in the crowd for some of the Bok games in their run to the 2023 Rugby World Cup title in France.
But, of course, Du Plessis’ political views rub many people up the wrong way, and he was at it again in the build-up to last week’s bout by wearing a ‘Trump prefers champions’ T-shirt, and expressing his support for Elon Musk, who is a close associate of the US president.
“With everything going on right now, change is coming, good changes. Big shout-out to fellow South African Elon Musk for also doing the right thing. Trump prefers champions,” Du Plessis said.
“With Trump being re-elected, which is absolutely incredible, I think he’s an amazing, amazing president. I’ve had the privilege of meeting him.”
The timing of Du Plessis’ comments couldn’t have been worse, as it came after Trump first posted that “South Africa is confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people very badly”, which has now turned into an executive order to cut off funding to Mzansi, and being willing to provide asylum for Afrikaners.
But it was no surprise that Du Plessis made his comments. He knows his supporters, he knows the UFC and MMA markets, and his utterances gained maximum exposure across the SA and US spheres – which was the whole point of it in the week of the Strickland fight.
What was a bit eyebrow-raising for me was Du Plessis saying that “losing is not an option. I have a whole nation backing me”.
After his comments about Trump and Musk, I’m not so sure about that.
But at least “nou weet ons wat Dricus du Plessis weet”: that he is a great fighter, but that he loves the attention the Trump and Musk comments gave him.