With his mostly dominant win over a former champion Saturday, [autotag]Dricus Du Plessis[/autotag] punched his ticket to a title fight.
Then things got ugly.
Du Plessis (20-2 MMA, 6-0 UFC) took out former middleweight champion Robert Whittaker (25-7 MMA, 15-5 UFC) with a second-round TKO at UFC 290 in Las Vegas. The fight was a title eliminator meant to determine the next challenger for champ [autotag]Israel Adesanya[/autotag] – who has been going back and forth in the media and on social media with Du Plessis.
Adesanya (24-2 MMA, 13-2 UFC) was born in Nigeria in Africa, but lives and trains in New Zealand. Du Plessis was born in South Africa and has lived there his whole life. And that fact is what has caused tension between the two, with Du Plessis saying he’s a true African.
That boiled over Saturday when the UFC brought Adesanya into the cage for a faceoff with his next opponent, Du Plessis. And among the trash talk from Adesanya was around a dozen uses of the N-word directed at Du Plessis, apparently to mock him for saying he was the true African between the two.
Their exchange ended when Du Plessis walked away with his hands raised while Adesanya still was barking on the microphone.
And that set up a title fight likely to headline UFC 293 in September in Sydney – and a buildup that could get increasingly ugly.
Adesanya beat Whittaker to win the title in 2019, then had defenses against Yoel Romero and Paulo Costa. He moved up to 205 pounds to challenge then-champ Jan Blachowicz for that belt, but lost a decision.
Back at middleweight, Adesanya beat Marvin Vettori, Whittaker again, and Jared Cannonier, but then was upset by rival Alex Pereira with a fifth-round knockout in a fight he was winning. Five months later, Adesanya recaptured the belt at UFC 287.
Du Plessis has not lost since 2018 and has five of his six UFC wins by stoppage. After what amounted to warm-up UFC fights and knockouts of Markus Perez and Trevin Giles, the level of competition went up for Du Plessis. But he had little trouble with Brad Tavares, Darren Till, Derek Brunson and Whittaker on his way to a title shot.