DDP's handling of the entire situation is impeccable. To say such low things and come away looking like the hero... Only the great Conor McGregor has achieved this level of trashtalk dominance.
Du Plessis responded Friday in an interview with
MMA On Point.
“I didn’t watch [Strickland’s comments] and I don’t think I will,” du Plessis said. “Watching a grown man cry in an interview, it’s not really my watch material that I go and watch. But it is it is what it is. I’m glad he cried and he got it out. I hope that’s the end of that.
“I think we give him a lot more credit than he deserves in terms of mindset. I don’t think he thinks about anything. I think he goes out there and he fights, he fights the way Sean Strickland fights. He always has and he’s an incredible fighter. I have a lot of respect for him as a fighter. I think he’s incredible. Do I think he’s a hypocrite? One-hundred percent. One-hundred percent. Obviously childhood trauma is something you can’t help, but if you know what it feels like to be the one on the receiving end of such trauma, don’t inflict it on others, because that’s exactly what he does. So yes, I feel bad for him and I don’t think any kid deserves that, ever.”
“If you go after other people, eventually they’re going to come after you,” du Plessis said. “And I think he’s used to being the bully and he’s not used to being bullied. But I don’t have to hammer on that. I already won that fight, I won that press conference. I don’t want to keep on hammering on the same thing. Yes, he cried on Theo Von’s podcast. I guess it was terrible, and like I said, no kid deserves that. No kid deserves to go through that. But if you want to dish it out, you better take it. And like I said, I have mad respect for him as a fighter, even as a person. He’s always been a straight-up guy. Even the fact that he tried to fight me in the crowd, that was him being a man.
“What I’m saying is, if you want to dish it out, be able to take it, man, or you’re just a hypocrite. You didn’t deserve that as a kid, but as a grown man, you dish it out, you’re going to get it. That is the way the world works, unfortunately. And like I said, with this mindset going to this fight, I think he’s going to come out and fight the way Sean Strickland fights. My mindset, I don’t care about him. I care about me, what I do, what I go out there to do, and that is become the world champion.
“Whether he’s angry, whether he’s not, does he have motivation — I see everybody talking about Sean Strickland having muscle now,” du Plessis continued. “Well, welcome to being a professional. I’ve had it my whole career. Nice, you have abs for the first time, I’m really happy for you. But that’s what you should look like as a professional athlete. Good job. I’m really happy that I can motivate you get some abs. But it doesn’t bother me. Good luck with those abs, I’ve been fighting with mine for years.”
“I don’t agree with what Colby did. Talking about somebody’s dead family, that is 100 percent stepping over a line, 100 percent,” du Plessis said.
“It’s not something to be taken lightly, and definitely not something to be joked about. Now when I said what I said about Sean Strickland, I didn’t joke about it. I spoke the truth, because he’s been very outspoken about it. He spoke about it. He was making jokes about it. I was never joking about it. I just stated facts. I never joked about it, not once.”
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