Security moved in to stand between the two once Du Plessis clocked the Nigeria-born New Zealander’s presence.
“Chill, this is my African brother. What’s up, [expletive]. Let’s go, [expletive],” Adesanya said as they squared up to each other.
“I don’t need a DNA test to know where I’m from,” Adesanya added. “Do one, it’ll tell you where you’re from. I’ll show you where you’re from.
“It’s an easy fight, it’s easy money. I manifested this – I said I was gonna have this moment.”
As Adesanya and Du Plessis were being pulled away from each other, Rogan added “ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got a world title fight”.
It is expected the two will headline September’s UFC 293 card in Sydney, Australia, providing Du Plessis has no lingering health issues from Saturday’s fight.
Du Plessis had angered Adesanya earlier this year after claiming “I’m the only African fighter” in the UFC, questioning the African representation of Adesanya and former UFC champions Francis Ngannou and Kamaru Usman, who are French-Cameroonian and Nigerian-American respectively.
“Did those belts ever go to Africa?” Du Plessis said at UFC 285 media day in May. “As far as I know, they came to America and New Zealand. I’m going to take a belt to Africa.
“I’m the African fighter in the UFC. Myself and Cameron [Saaiman], we breathe African air. We wake up in Africa every day. We train in Africa, we’re African born, we’re African raised, we still reside in Africa, we train out of Africa – that’s an African champion, and that’s who I’ll be.”
Du Plessis later said Adesanya, who was ringside watching the fight, acted like a “child” during their Octagon encounter.
“He’s behaving like a clown in there. That’s not how a champion behaves. That’s not how a man behaves,” Du Plessis said at the post-event press conference.
“I’ll knock him out ... If I get my hands on him, it’s not even a fight. I’ll manhandle him. We saw his fight with Alex Pereira. If I get him to the floor, it is not even a fight. If I just get my hands on him, it’s not even a fight. I will manhandle him. I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again.”
At the end of the pay-per-view broadcast Rogan told his commentary colleagues Jon Anik and Daniel Cormier – the former UFC two-division champ – that he was looking forward to a “fantastic” fight between Adesanya and Du Plessis.
“There’s a lot of animosity and hype behind that,” he said. “It’s an interesting fight seeing what he [Du Plessis] did to Whittaker. No one has done that to Whittaker. He’s a big dude. He’s big at 185 pounds.
“What a tremendous performance against the No 2 guy in the division, outside of Alex Pereira who has moved up [to light heavyweight].
“Dricus Du Plessis beat him up and broke him down, and looked massive inside there. So strong, durable. He was making fun of people making fun of his cardio, but the guy had a bad nose, now he has a fully functional nose and we saw the difference tonight. He’s an animal.”
Cormier, who retired in 2020, also suggested Du Plessis will not be as much of an underdog against Adesanya as people think.
“People are gonna discount him against Adesanya, but Du Plessis is gonna walk in there. He’s a little goofy, he’ll tell you he’s gonna win and he’ll go out here and try.
“He tries so hard in everything he’s doing. This dude is not afraid of Adesanya, and Adesanya was on some weird stuff tonight. Adesanya was maybe a little tipsy.”
It was a night of high drama in Las Vegas, with Brazil’s Alexandre Pantoja dethroning flyweight champion Brandon Moreno by split decision in a thrilling co-main event.
Alexander Volkanovski later finished interim featherweight champ Yair Rodriguez via TKO in the third round to retain his title in the headliner.
Earlier in the night, legendary former welterweight champion and newly-minted UFC Hall of Famer Robbie Lawlor went out in style with a 38-second KO of Niko Price in his retirement fight.
American wrestling stand-out Bo Nickal (5-0) also added to his burgeoning reputation with a first-round knockout of Val Woodburn (7-1).
New Zealand’s Dan Hooker reminded the lightweight division of the threat he poses by handing American prospect Jalin Turner a second-straight split decision loss having come close to getting the finish.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tK%2FMqWWcp51kwLG70a1mppmiqbaiuIyaqa2rX6K2ubHDZqSaqqSerq15wKurrGeRp8Gqr8ueZmxqYmx9d4GOrp2cZWJufW610quYnqRdlrGmv8CnsJplk6S7p77Op6usZZGbv6qvwKdkm6qfqbWmvoydqaKbpah6pcGMqaOeq6OewG6wwKegnqRdmLyzucieqWain6CytHnCoZimqF2srrQ%3D