Dricus du Plessis Wants ‘No Part’ of Israel Adesanya’s Racial Rant

It’s a gray area as to who started the bad blood between UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya and top contender Dricus Du Plessis, but “Stillknocks” is looking to step away as far as possible from the racially-charged tension.

Adesanya and Du Plessis had exchanged some serious trash talk leading up to UFC 290 earlier this month, but after DDP sparked Robert Whittaker to earn a knockout stoppage the two finally came face-to-face inside of the cage. To much surprise, Adesanya launched a vulgar attack on Du Plessis complete with racial slurs {snip} Du Plessis had little to say as he looked “Last Stylebender” in the face and let him finish his shocking tirade.

Adesanya’s reasoning for the racially-charged outburst stems from a comment made by Du Plessis a while back about becoming the first true African champion. Du Plessis was born in Africa, resides in Africa, and trains in Africa, but his comment left a bad taste in the mouth of other African fighters like Adesanya.

While some people are blaming Du Plessis for his initial viewpoint the middleweight contender is now hoping to separate himself from any race-related issues. {snip}

{snip}

“This sport is so amazing and has given so many people so much things, and bringing [in] race, color, with racial slurs, all of that stuff, immediately made me like, ‘I don’t want to be a part of this.’ That’s why I just walked away. I’m not gonna engage in that. That is not the example I want to set for people. That is not what my message to anybody in the world is. I guess he can do whatever he wants. Dana [White] said it. He can say whatever he wants. He can. I’m just not entertaining that. I’m not entertaining any talk about the racial slurs that he’s been using.”

{snip}