Du Plessis On Injury: ‘I Couldn’t Walk’

The South African fighter opened up on the severity of a foot injury that stopped him from fighting Israel Adesanya.

Dricus Du Plessis is set to return on January 20th, 2024 at UFC 297 against middleweight champion Sean Strickland. It’s a bit of a surprise booking. The UFC had promised Khamzat Chimaev the next shot at the 185 pound belt. Du Plessis? All he had been getting was guff over refusing to fight Israel Adesanya at UFC 293.

But as Dricus explained in a new interview with Submission Radio, the UFC knew his foot injury was extremely serious. He’d been suffering from it even leading into the Robert Whittaker fight.

“I mean, I couldn’t walk. I could not walk on my foot,” he said. “I went to the doctor and said, listen, we need to make this thing work just so I can get to the airport and not – because in South Africa, I’m going to take photos when I’m at the airport, people are going to ask me for photos. I can’t be walking with a brace on or be limping on my way to my fight.”

“And even in the States. And a lot of people saying, oh, he wasn’t really injured. I just said, cool. Firstly, with this, there’s records. Secondly, if you go to [ask] the UFC PI staff, and I guess there’s cameras and on record, that is the only thing I worked on the whole time I was at the PI, was my foot. Every single day I was at the physio and at the PT working on this foot.”

Maybe that’s why cooler heads prevailed and Du Plessis got the title fight he deserved off a Whittaker win. Or maybe Chimaev just can’t travel to North America. Either or both.

“Stillknocks” also discussed the Strickland vs. Adesanya fight, saying Izzy “just never switched on, he never switched on in that fight.”

“Strickland did absolutely incredible to realize that Israel Adesanya, he can’t shoot,” he added. “Any coach and anybody who watched that fight would say, shoot! Just take him down, or at least try. I mean, he was up against the fence getting just out-pointed the whole fight, and he didn’t try to take the fight down once. Because he doesn’t have that ability.”

“And that’s the problem you have with a one-dimensional fighter who’s so good in one area of the game. Who’s brilliant in one area.”

Now the South African fighter is ready to impose his gameplan on “Tarzan.”

“Sean Strickland did what Sean Strickland does against Israel and it works for him,” he said. “And that’s great. Styles do make fights. So, it works for him. But I have my style of fighting. He has his style of fighting. And in our fight, it’s going to be the guy who imposes his will and fights his fight the best. That’s going to be the winner and that’s going to be me.”