Driscus Du Plessis made headlines by defeating the former titleholder Robert Whittaker with a second-round TKO at UFC 290. After that, Israel Adesanya was seen going face-to-face with Du Plessis at the Octagon. Hence, the fight between Adesanya and Du Plessis is expected to take place on 10 September for UFC 293.
But, now reports have come out that Du Plessis might opt out of the fight and Sean Strickland to replace him. On Twitter, Ariel Helwani reported: "It’s not quite official but pretty close at this point that Dricus Du Plessis will not be able to fight Israel Adesanya at UFC 293 on Sept. 9 in Sydney. He was banged up going into the Robert Whittaker fight, and that turnaround is just too soon, I’m told.”
“Let's do 'The Man Dance.'” - Israel Adesanya to Driscus Du Plessis
“If that ends up being the case, and Israel Adesanya stays on the card, which is his desire, it’ll be Adesanya x Sean Strickland for the middleweight title on 9/9," he further added. After hearing such reports, Israel Adesanya also reacted as he said that Du Plessis is backing out of the fight due to a foot issue. Adesanya claimed: "I don't even know how to start this, Dricus Du Pu*sy... You a bi*ch, that's why you're not taking this fight. Your foot's sore... You're out. Strickland, you're in. Let's do 'The Man Dance.' I'll show you how to really dance."
Recently, the former UFC heavyweight Brendan Schaub opened up on a recent episode of “The Schaub Show” and said that fans need to acknowledge Du Plessis. Schaub said: “DDP is the real deal. I think Robert Whittaker, you look at his fights before this he looked pretty f*cking good. You can’t say this is an older version of Robert Whittaker. I think Dricus du Plessis is that f*cking good and it’s time we start acknowledging it. What he looks like is Dricus du Plessis that we’ve never seen and it’s f*cking good. It’s damn near impossible to beat. I’d love to talk to his coach. Hat’s off to him, they’ve done a great job with him and tuning his style and getting it to this world-class level, and nobody believed him. Nobody but his coaches and probably his few family members thought he was going to be at this level,”