In the moments after closing the book on his rivalry with Sean Strickland for good, Dricus Du Plessis grabbed the microphone and stared across the Octagon.
“Is there no one else?” he yelled. “Is there no one else?”
The message was clear: The reigning middleweight champion hadn’t forgotten about Alex Pereira’s callout following his victory over Israel Adesanya last year. Since Pereira was in Strickland’s corner in the UFC 312 main event in Sydney on Saturday night, the timing couldn’t have been better.
Despite that intriguing bit of theater, Du Plessis realizes there’s a natural order to things, and that means clearing out the remaining challenges in his own division.