The two African fighters, Isreal Adesanya and Dricus du Plessis are set to face each other at the UFC 305 event. The middleweights have impressive records in the UFC.
Israel Adesanya, popularly known as ‘The Last Stylebender’, is a Nigerian-New Zeland fighter who has held the middleweight champions twice at the UFC. His rival Dricus du Plessis–A South African-born athlete– won the belt in January after defeating Sean Strickland in Australia.
Although the two athletes have never been in the cage together, they have been exchanging heated words following their upcoming fight. Du Plessis recently declared himself the ‘Real African Champion,’ to which Adesanya had a lot to say. The two had a heated back-and-forth during their pre-fight conference. However, it seems Du Plessis is staring the pot again. He recently commented on Adesanya’s ‘Fire going out’.
The Nigerian fighter seems to still hold a grudge against the reigning champion over his self-proclamation and plans to set Plessis right.
“I want him to take accountability for his remarks,” Adesanya told TMZ Sports. “Abdul Razak [Alhassan] said it before his fight about three weeks ago, saying. ‘I respect Dricus, but he’s a b*tch for what he said.’ He’s a b*tch. Because Dricus is saying, ‘I trained in Africa. I do this in Africa,’ and people like Razak and myself who are forced to flee our own country because of a better opportunity. He’ll never understand that because he lives behind the f*cking gates of his privileged life in South Africa. He’s able to do that there.
“So, someone like Francis [Ngannou] who had to cross the desert to go overseas to go train. If you know Francis’ story, you can’t call him not a real African champion because he didn’t train in Africa.
“Like, bro. Are you f*cking kidding?” he concluded. “The guy got sent back out to the desert six, seven times to go die, and he survived.”
He continued:
“Even without Francis being champion, without myself being champion, without Kamaru being champion, he would have never been champion,” Adesanya said. “We paved the way for him, and then he comes out there and tries to take it all for himself. What kind of mindset is it that you see three African champions, and you’re going to be the fourth one? That’s a colonist mindset.
“He doesn’t understand the error of his ways, but I will show him the way.”
Although the two fighters have never fought, they have built a rivalry that only needs one opponent to dominate the other. “Beating him is what attracted me to this fight, not the belt,” Adesanya said.
