Ahead of the highly anticipated middleweight title fight between Dricus Du Plessis and Israel Adesanya at UFC 305 on August 17 from Perth, Western Australia, the two took part in an intense press conference this past Tuesday.
The feud between Dricus Du Plessis and Israel Adesanya stems back to when ‘The Last Stylebender’ held the middleweight title, but since then, the roles have completely reversed.
After ‘Stillknocks’ defeated Sean Strickland at UFC 297 earlier this year to become the new champion, it finally set up an anticipated fight between Du Plessis and Adesanya.
Du Plessis and Adesanya intensely face off after back-and-forth press conference
Despite the 34-year-old Kiwi no longer being the champion, Adesanya still believes he has a target on his back because of the legacy he has built in the sport.
“It still feels that way, never changes, I am Israel Adesanya, you know, there’s always going to be a target on my back,” Izzy stated at the UFC 305 press conference.
“As the most active champion in history, five fights in 18 months, it was just too much for me and I was forced to take a break and I’m happy I did. By the time I step back in there with Dricus, it’ll be almost a year, a lot has happened in a year, a lot has changed for me in a year,” Adesanya continued.
Adesanya went on to explain where the feud between the two began, stating that when Du Plessis tried to ‘discredit’ him, Francis Ngannou, and Kamaru Usman as African champions, it got to him.
“He tried to discredit the three kings and say that he is the real true African champion and I was just like it’s a weird mindset. He came to the UFC I knew who he was a little bit but I didn’t go ‘Who the f**** this fake dude coming in’, I just said cool, he’s another African in the UFC,” the 34-year-old stated.
During his time away from competition, Adesanya has admittedly changed the way he is living, living more like an athlete than he was before. As well as that, the former champion has also taken up golf as a way to unwind from training.
“I’m glad you took up golf because, you know, that’s a retirement sport, I can understand you started playing golf,” Du Plessis commented.
Dricus Du Plessis reacts to intense staredown at UFC 305 press conference
Following the back-and-forth war of words at the press conference, the two got into an extremely intense face-off, both uttering words to each other.
When talking about what was said during the face-off, Du Plessis told Submission Radio: “As far as I know he said, ‘Don’t go kissing me’ and I said ‘I’m no dog so I won’t’. In my opinion, I think this is him trying to convince himself that he still wants to do this.”
The two have faced off once before following Du Plessis’ emphatic win over Robert Whittaker at UFC 290. The champion admitted that he loves the staredowns, and he learned something from their intense face-off this past Tuesday.
“I loved it, I love the staredown. The longer we stood there, the smaller he became in my eyes and in his own so for me that was great, that was awesome. That staredown gives me a lot and gives everyone a view of what this fight is going to hold,” the middleweight champion added.
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