Dricus du Plessis has weighed-in on his UFC 290 face-off with Israel Adesayna and ultimately why he decided to walk away from the situation.
Following his upset victory over Robert Whittaker at UFC 290, the South African was approached by the middleweight champion Adesanya in the center of the Octagon. The confrontation mainly consisted of racial slurs from Adesayna, which upset many viewers. That said, du Plessis showed no interest in entertaining a verbal back-and-forth with Adesanya, and would rather do the talking when the pair collide.
Du Plessis was originally scheduled to be the next challenger for the champion at UFC 293, however, he recently disclosed he wouldn’t be ready. Despite the fight not happening next, it’s a fight fans can certainly expect to go down over the next 12-months given the bad blood.
Dricus du Plessis on UFC 290
In a recent interview, Du Plessis addressed the incident that unfolded at UFC 290:
“This sport is so amazing and it’s given so many people so many things, and bringing race, color, racial slurs, all of that stuff into it, immediately made me think, I don’t want to be a part of this. That’s why I just walked away. I’m not going to engage in that. That is not the example I want to set for people, that is not what my message to anybody in the world is.
“He can do whatever he wants. Like Dana said, he can say whatever he wants and yeah, he can. I’m just not entertaining that. I’m not entertaining any talk about racial slurs that he’s been using. It doesn’t bother me, it doesn’t offend me, it has no affect on me. What it does do, people that are looking up to me, see that too. The people that I try to influence see that too, and I don’t want to be any part of that.”
What did you make of the post-fight interaction at UFC 290 between Israel Adesanya and Dricus du Plessis? Let us know in the comments!
Featured image credits to Embed from Getty Images
