Dricus Du Plessis gets his crack at winning the middleweight championship when he takes on champion Sean Strickland in the UFC 297 main event on Saturday. Heading into the biggest fight of his career, Du Plessis has a familiar feeling.
“It feels absolutely amazing. I’m on the poster. That’s where I wanted to be and here we are,” Du Plessis told The MMA Hour. “I’m loving every moment of it. It’s not different in a sense of how I feel about it. My debut as a professional, not even in the UFC, felt exactly the same as this fight feels, and in my UFC debut. I’m always feeling like this because every fight to me is a world title fight. Every fight I fight is the last fight I will ever fight. I’m there to win or die trying. Whether it’s my debut, whether it’s for the title, I’m there to win.”
Coming off a TKO win over former champion Robert Whittaker, Du Plessis is confident heading into the title bout.
“He fought the way he fights (against Israel Adesanya), and he did it extremely well. He did it really, really well,” said Du Plessis. “He shocked me with his performance. Definitely, but that’s his style. He’s always fought that way. He just did it every effectively. For this one, that performance wouldn’t have been enough to beat me. No way. He fought an incredible fight. That’s not a performance that’s going to beat me.
“Sean Strickland is one hell of a fighter. I think this fight is going to be incredible,” Strickland continued. “I know people are saying he’s got this output. I have the highest significant strike rate, as far as I know, in middleweight history. And people talk about his output.
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“He forces people to fight his style, and I won’t let that happen. He does that very, very well. That’s why he’s the world champion. He deserves it. He got the shot. He’s lucky that he got the shot, but he deserves to be champion. He fought. He showed up and showed all the grit and traveled half way across the world to go out there to enemy territory and he beat one of the best middleweights to ever do it in spectacular fashion. So he deserves it and all the praise that he’s getting, but now he has to deal with me.”
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