Like the Fat Boys said, Don’t you dog me!
Reigning middleweight champion Dricus Du Plessis came face-to-face with former 185-pound titleholder Israel Adesanya at the conclusion of the UFC 305 kickoff press conference earlier this week, to help drive ticket sales for their five-round title fight atop the UFC 305 pay-per-view (PPV) event this August in Perth, Western Australia.
Watch their intense (and smooch-free) staredown video HERE.
“I think he said, ‘don’t kiss me,’ as far as I know,” Du Plessis told Submission Radio. “He said, ‘don’t go kissing me now.’ I said, ‘I’m no dog, so I won’t.’ I don’t know what he was saying. I wasn’t really focused on what he was saying. I didn’t say anything. I’m not here to to say anything to him. The date is set, there’s no need to be saying anything. In terms of the demeanor, this whole demeanor around this whole fight, I can feel this man is trying to convince himself that he still wants to be here. In saying that, he has done so much in the sport and he says it’s not about titles anymore. He will never, ever be — he will never get what he had again.”
There’s video of Adesanya and his dog that I don’t have the stomach to explain, so I’ll defer to former middleweight champion Sean Strickland. “Tarzan” had no trouble going into great detail about the … well, just click here and see for yourself.
“I loved that staredown. The longer we stood there, the smaller he became — in my eyes and in his own,” Du Plessis continued. “So for me, that was that was great. It was awesome. That staredown also gives me a lot, gives everybody a feel for what this fight’s going to hold. I have no doubt in my mind that this fight is going to be an absolute banger of a fight. Like I said, I’ve never been in a boring fight and I know he has been, but not with me. When you’re in that Octagon with me, there’s no way it’s a boring fight because I will be coming and trying to take your head off for 25 minutes. At the end of the day, I’m coming to finish you know, I didn’t get a finish in my last fight. I only had two decisions in my career, and that’s more than enough. Both decisions were incredible wars. I’m happy with that. But I’m coming to finish. I’m coming to prove a point and I’m coming to do it in spectacular fashion.”
This marks the first title defense for Du Plessis (21-2) since capturing the middleweight crown from Strickland at UFC 297 earlier this year in Toronto. Similarly, Adesanya (24-3) has not competed since his Strickland fight, a UFC 293 loss back in late 2023.
Expect their war of words to heat up even further as we get closer to fight night.