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'He's an absolute asshole': Dricus Du Plessis, Belal Muhammad continue trading barbs

'He's an absolute asshole': Dricus Du Plessis, Belal Muhammad continue trading barbs

USA Today08-08-2025
@bullyb170 well done! JK
It's safe to say Dricus Du Plessis and Belal Muhammad still don't like each other.
Former UFC welterweight champion Muhammad (24-4 MMA, 15-4 UFC) spoke about his desire of possibly moving up to middleweight to challenge Du Plessis (23-2 MMA, 9-0 UFC) for the title, and how he's not sold on him as a fighter. Du Plessis recently took pleasure in watching Muhammad lose his belt to Jack Della Maddalena at UFC 315 in May.
"I was watching the fight to see him lose," Du Plessis said of Muhammad on "The Ariel Helwani Show." "I think he's an absolute asshole, so I was really happy to see that. That's why I made the tweet. Before the fight started, I had that tweet ready. It was just basically copy, paste, boom. Call it hope (that he loses), call it no doubt, it was one of those two."
Du Plessis defends his middleweight title against undefeated Khamzat Chimaev (14-0 MMA, 8-0 UFC) in the UFC 319 headliner on Aug. 16 from United Center in Chicago (ESPN+, ESPN, pay-per-view).
A Chicago native, Muhammad had a message for Du Plessis.
"Also heard Dricus is in Chicago," Muhammad said on YouTube channel. "Bro, this is my city. Big card next week, huge main event. If you need anything from Chicago, like food, groceries, therapists, cage, gym, sauna, make sure you don't hit me up. You're not welcome here. Chicago, if you see him, you let him know, you don't like his kind. Go, Khamzat!"
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