{"id":823090,"date":"2025-01-30T10:14:18","date_gmt":"2025-01-30T16:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/30\/chris-curtis-dricus-du-plessis-vs-sean-strickland-will-be-like-coked-out-chimpanzees-in-a-phone-booth\/"},"modified":"2025-01-30T10:14:18","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T16:14:18","slug":"chris-curtis-dricus-du-plessis-vs-sean-strickland-will-be-like-coked-out-chimpanzees-in-a-phone-booth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/30\/chris-curtis-dricus-du-plessis-vs-sean-strickland-will-be-like-coked-out-chimpanzees-in-a-phone-booth\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Curtis: Dricus Du Plessis vs. Sean Strickland will be like &#8216;coked-out chimpanzees in a phone booth&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<article id=\"post-2796529\" itemscope itemtype=\"http:\/\/schema.org\/NewsArticle\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t<meta itemprop=\"datePublished\" content=\"2025-01-08T16:20:50-05:00\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t<meta itemprop=\"dateModified\" content=\"2025-01-08T15:31:09-05:00\"><\/p>\n<header>\n<div>\n<p><span><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1000\" height=\"563\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/u4jwyfTBAMw?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div itemprop=\"author\" itemscope itemtype=\"http:\/\/schema.org\/Person\">\n<p><span>January 8, 2025 4:20 pm ET<\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div id=\"content-container\">\n<div itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/tag\/chris-curtis\">Chris Curtis<\/a> expects another wild fight from <a href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/tag\/sean-strickland\">Sean Strickland<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/tag\/dricus-du-plessis\">Dricus Du Plessis<\/a> at <a href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/events\/ufc-312\">UFC 312<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Strickland (29-6 MMA, 16-6 UFC) rematches middleweight champion Du Plessis (22-2 MMA, 8-0 UFC) in the Feb. 8 headliner at Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney. The main card streams on <a href=\"https:\/\/go.web.plus.espn.com\/AWz1AR\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ESPN+<\/a> pay-per-view following prelims on ESPN2 and ESPN+.<\/p>\n<p>Their first fight at UFC 297 ended in <a href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/2024\/01\/ufc-297-results-sean-strickland-vs-dricus-du-plessis-israel-adesanya\">a split decision<\/a>, where Du Plessis got the nod over Strickland to claim the 185-pound belt. Du Plessis lost his lone-career rematch against Roberto Soldic, where after finishing him by TKO to win the KSW welterweight title, he lost their second fight by knockout.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFighting Dricus is like fighting a coked-out chimpanzee in a phone booth,\u201d Curtis told MMA Junkie. \u201cYou\u2019re just like, what\u2019s happening? But I think it\u2019s really overwhelming and surprising for guys because you\u2019re like, who fights like this? What are you doing? And the dude is just out of his mind, trying to win.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI respect that, but I feel like stylistically, in the second fight, when you kind of know what to expect and you understand that he\u2019s dancing to his own song, I wonder how that goes, because his only rematch with Soldic, he lost. Yeah, that\u2019s years ago, but I kind of think it\u2019s kind of telling to where once guys figure that out, you learn what to look for. I think it becomes a different fight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Curtis understands that the same applies to Strickland, where Du Plessis could pick up on his tendencies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s just going to be such a weird fight,\u201d Curtis said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be coked-out chimpanzees in a phone booth, and I want to see it. I believe in Sean, he\u2019s one of the hardest-working dudes I\u2019ve ever met. I think he can do it, I\u2019m pulling for him, but at the end of the day, I just kind of want to see this happen because honestly, it\u2019s the most high-level circus fight you\u2019ll ever see.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Curtis and Strickland recently patched things up after the two friends fell out over a social media spat. All is good right now, but Curtis, who meets Roman Kopylov on Saturday\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/events\/ufc-fight-night-january-11-2025\">UFC Fight Night 249<\/a> card at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas (<a href=\"https:\/\/go.web.plus.espn.com\/AWz1AR\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ESPN+<\/a>), admitted he wouldn\u2019t be surprised if it happened again.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve never left the gym, me and Sean fight a lot,\u201d Curtis said. \u201cWhen you\u2019ve known somebody for that long, you\u2019re going to have some friction. Especially when you know somebody that long, you know how to get under each other\u2019s skin. We\u2019ve had words, we\u2019ve had fistfights on multiple occasions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s always going to be that way. We\u2019re very different personalities, we\u2019re very different beliefs and boundaries. We\u2019ve both crossed those boundaries a lot more than most people. So, it\u2019s going to happen. It\u2019s just a part of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie\u2019s event hub for\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/events\/ufc-312\" target=\"blank\" rel=\"noopener\">UFC 312<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><i><span dir=\"ltr\">Be sure to visit the MMA Junkie <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/mmajunkie\/?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Instagram<\/a> page and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@MMAJunkieOfficial\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">YouTube<\/a> channel to discuss this and more content with fans of mixed martial arts.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Farah Hannoun, Mike Bohn<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/2025\/01\/ufc-312-dricus-du-plessis-vs-sean-strickland-coked-out-chimpaneez\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>January 8, 2025 4:20 pm ET Chris Curtis expects another wild fight from Sean Strickland and Dricus Du Plessis at UFC 312. Strickland (29-6 MMA, 16-6 UFC) rematches middleweight champion Du Plessis (22-2 MMA, 8-0 UFC) in the Feb. 8 headliner at Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney. The main card streams on ESPN+ pay-per-view following<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":823091,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[356,21964],"tags":[6932,45817],"class_list":{"0":"post-823090","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chris","8":"category-curtis","9":"tag-chris","10":"tag-curtis"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/823091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}