Sean Strickland Claims Injury Caused UFC 297 Loss, Dricus Du Plessis Responds
Sean Strickland’s latest claim that a head butt contributed to his loss at UFC 297 generated a strong response from newly-crowned middleweight champion Dricus Du Plessis.
The main event of UFC 297 saw Du Plessis narrowly claim the promotion’s middleweight belt via split decision, and in his post-fight interview Strickland was quick to compliment “Stillknocks” but argued that he'd done enough to win the matchup and retain his title.
A major turning point in the fight came when Strickland suffered a cut over his eye early in the fourth round, and the former champion recently took to Instagram to share video of an alleged head butt from Du Plessis as well as a photo of the stitches that the cut required.
Strickland was bleeding heavily by the end of the fight but never gave any indication that the cut had compromised his vision that badly, and Du Plessis was happy to comment on the 32-year-old’s post and dismiss the suggestion that his opponent should have gotten the nod from the judges.
(Instagram)
He may have come out on the winning side of the judges’ scorecards, but Du Plessis did sustain quite a bit of damage himself and likely had his own vision compromised by some massive swelling over his eye that occurred fairly early on in the bout.
UFC CEO Dana White indicated immediately after UFC 297 that he had scored the fight for Strickland but didn’t have any issue with Du Plessis winning it, and although the two middleweights could rematch at some point the promotion now seems focused on booking a fight between “Stillknocks” and former champion Israel Adesanya.
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