UFC 297 Press Conference: Strickland and Du Plessis Agree to Fight to the Death

The UFC 297 press conference was a rather short one but undoubtedly one of the best we have seen in recent months. Sean Strickland and Dricus Du Plessis are real entertainers. Here are all the latest UFC news.

Strickland vs Du Plessis Press Conference: Sean Strickland Wants To Go To War

It is always good to see Dana White hosting the big press conference and he wasted no time telling the latest UFC 297 news. According to him, this is the highest-grossing arena gate in history and the biggest sold-out arena in UFC history with 18,100 seats gone. We wrote a few days ago that there were a lot of seats available for this event but clearly, people like to shop late and the entire Scotiabank Arena in Toronto has been sold out.

Sean Strickland wasted no time and gave one of his famous motivational speeches as soon as the first question at the UFC 297 press conference. He said that he only cares about the people who are watching, he cares about them being free and he wants them to have the freedom of speech. He also said that he could not wait to go to war for the fans on Saturday.

He continued with a bit of praise for his opponent, calling him a hell of a fighter. He even said that he was better than Israel Adesanya and that this fight would be harder for him. And as soon as the fans began booing Du Plessis, Strickland defended him and called him a warrior.

Dricus was clearly amused and called out the fans for being too quiet. He said that the boos in Las Vegas are much louder and requested more effort.

An interesting series of questions was directed at Raquel Pennington and Mayra Bueno Silva, who will fight for Amanda Nunes' belt after she retired. Pennington called out Silva for being inexperienced. After all, she has fought literally every former champion of the past decade while this will be the biggest challenge in Bueno Silva's career. She responded that this was her belt and she would win comfortably.

A reporter later asked if Mayra Bueno Silva thinks that this title match will be as good as the ones in the past when either Ronda Rousey or Amanda Nunes fought. Bueno Silva responded with a fun line, saying that she is not sure that even Pennington is at her level.

Mike Malott showed his excitement better than anyone on the stage. After all, he is the local fan-favorite and he literally lives close to the arena.

Somehow a fan managed to skip past the security and climbed on the stage in front of Stickland, who absolutely loved the effort. He rose to his feet and threw out another motivational speech before shaking Du Plessis' hand in agreement that they would fight “to the death”.

Sean was asked if he plans to wrestle against Du Plessis and he responded that he wants this fight to be between men and he hopes that they will fight on their feet until somebody goes to sleep.

UFC 297 Press Conference: Sean Strickland Talked About Covington, Adesanya and Pereira

Strickland goes hard on everybody – he said it himself during the press conference – and he had said a few “good” words about Colby Covington before turning his attention to Israel Adesanya, who predicted that Dricus Du Plessis would win the title via submission. Strickland called the former champ “the f***ing cringe lord” and reminded everyone that he chose to stand up against him and beat him instead of wrestling.

A reporter then asked the main event fighters if they planned on challenging the former middleweight champion Alex Pereira, who was in attendance, for his light-heavyweight title. Du Plessis confirmed that he has this ambition while Strickland spoke directly to Pereira and said that he can have Dricus after he beats him.

This was the final question of the UFC 297 press conference. Unfortunately, Sean Strickland and Du Plessis stole the spotlight entirely and we did not see too many questions for the other fighters. Movsar Evloev, for example, did not receive even a single question. Nothing he can do when he is sitting next to big figures like the champion and the contender.