Dricus Du Plessis has explained exactly what he told Sean Strickland after breaking his nose at UFC 312.
Du Plessis defended his belt in a rematch with Strickland in the main event of UFC 312 on Sunday morning.
The pair had previously clashed at UFC 297 in January last year, when Du Plessis picked up the 185-pound belt for the first time.
Strickland failed to improve on his first outing against the South African, who picked up a comfortable unanimous decision victory.
After the five-round clash in Sydney, Australia, a video emerged online of the pair sharing a word.
“I told him he was ugly, obviously, when we fought,” Du Plessis said during his UFC 312 post-fight press conference.
“Because he’s not a pretty person to see. When I saw him after that, when I hit him on the nose. I went: ‘Wow’.
“I couldn’t believe he got uglier, I was like: ‘Woah’. And he did, I was like: ‘Your nose is so screwed up man’.”
Both men traded heavy blows at the start of the fight before du Plessis busted Strickland open with a brutal right hand in the fourth round.
Replays showed his punch connected directly with the nose of Strickland, breaking it instantly.
Blood then poured out of Strickland’s nose in the final two rounds and he never really recovered from the devastating hit.
En route to his victory, Du Plessis also broke Michael Bisping’s record for the most significant strikes in UFC middleweight history.
“He tried to break his nose back in the middle of the fight and for some weird reason I was giving him the opportunity,” Du Plessis added
“And then I went no, punch this guy in the face while he’s trying to do that!
“I went forward and he kept doing this [fixing nose to the right] but his nose is broken to that side.
“And I was thinking to myself, right the other way you should try and break it the other way, because he kept pushing it to the same side it was already broken to.
“He came back after that round, after the break. His nose was straight again, but it was thick. I punched him again and it just broke all the way again.
“I thought: ‘Aw, it sucks to be you right now. I hope it was a headbutt.’
Du Plessis is now likely to defend his UFC middleweight title next against the undefeated Khamzat Chimaev.
During his post-fight press conference, the undisputed champion also laid out his path to an eventual fight with UFC light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira.
“Khamzat [Chimaev] is first,” he said. “…Pereira is such a legend in this sport already that to me it would be amazing to beat him for my legacy.
“I want to be the greatest to ever do this, but Khamzat is next, Khamzat is next, and I’m gonna make sure that there’s no question I’m the goat of the middleweight decision.
“Anderson Silva, in my mind, is the goat of this division and you have [Israel] Adesanya, who has done incredible things.
“But it’s not about how many times you fight, it’s about how many times you defend the belt and who you’ve done it against and in what period of time you’ve done it.
“I’m not rushing for my next fight to be Alex Pereira. I want Khamzat next.”
Elsewhere at UFC 312, Zhang Weili made easy work of Tatiana Suarez in the co-main event to defend her strawweight title.
Meanwhile, Tallison Teixeira knocked Justin Tafa out cold in devastating fashion, and Alex Pereira shocked fans when he was spotted alongside his former rival Israel Adesanya.
