Israel Adesanya and  Dricus du  Plessis are coming back on August 17 at UFC 305. Both the fighters recently appeared in the press conference leading up to the fight and they reignited their rivalry with nothing held back. ‘Stillknocks’ did not seem affected by the former champions’ intense stare during their face-off and recently gave an interview where he paid Adesanya an underhanded compliment.

Du Plessis spoke about Adesanya’s biggest achievement and turned it into an insult against the former champion. He recently appeared in episode 646 of All Talk and gave his opinion about his opponent’s biggest achievement.

Du Plessis said, “He knows it and the world knows that he has done great things in this sport. But when it comes to as big as he’s gonna get, he has been as big as he’s gonna get in this sport. When it comes to the title defenses, the winning streaks – that will never come again because he doesn’t have the time.”

‘Stillnocks’ was referring to Adesanya beating Alex Pereira who had already beaten Adesanya three times before ‘Stylebender’ got his hand raised at UFC 287 –  “I think his biggest achievement for him, personally, was beating Alex Pereira. He had this nemesis who’s beaten him multiple times, and after that fight, he was ready to call it quits. That’s what I saw in his eyes as well.”  Du Plessis also claimed that his opponent wanted to quit UFC after that win and he was trying to convince himself otherwise. The middleweight champion is going full steam ahead with the mind games just as he had done before by saying that Adesanya was not a real South African.

Both the fighters have been at each others’ throats since this statement blew up. Du Plessis has been waiting for a shot at Adesanya since he defeated Robert Whittaker at UFC 290. After an eventful few months, he won the middleweight title against Sean Strickland instead. So now that he was holding all the cards, Du Plessis decided to settle the score with Adesanya before giving Strickland his due rematch. On a hiatus since his dropping the title to Strickland in September of last year, Adesanya is planning to make Du Plessis pay for his words.

Israel Adesanya goes off on Dricus Du Plessis

The former middleweight champion is not a big fan of ‘Stillknocks’, especially after what he insinuated. He was very upset when his opponent called himself the first African champion in UFC and asked Adesanya if his belts ever went to Africa. Since then the duo has had a rivalry both offline and online. The crackling tension between them was also visible during the press conference and face-off.

He even gave some warnings to the champion. The duo was previously supposed to meet at UFC 293 when Adesanya was still champion, but Du Plessis could not participate due to a foot injury. After the 30-year-old commented on being the true South African, Adesanya remarked on it. At the UFC 305 press conference, he said, “He tried to discredit the three kings and say that he is the real true African Champion. But then his discrediting me, Francis Ngannou, and Kamaru Usman, took me off a little bit. So, that’s what started this. But again, I’ll finish it.”

What do you make of the build-up to this one? Who takes the win in Perth? Give us your predictions in the comments below.