Dricus du Plessis’ career as an MMA fighter has taken interesting twists and turns, but there was never any doubt among experts that this talented sportsman was destined for great things.

Here are some interesting facts about Du Plessis, which is not widely known.

* Although he was born in Welkom in the Northern Free State, Du Plessis completed his school career at Hoërskool Hartbeespoort in the North West province, a stone’s throw from Pretoria. He then studied Agricultural Economics at the University of Pretoria, but in his final year he quit to focus full-time on his career as an MMA athlete.

* It is not widely known that as a young athlete Du Plessis was one of the world’s best kickboxers. After excelling as a judoka and wrestler as a young boy, he started participating in kickboxing at the age of 14. In 2012, as a 17-year-old, he qualified to participate in the World Association of Kickboxing Organizations (WAKO) junior world championship, where he won the gold medal.

* Dricus du Plessis’ conquest of the UFC title means that he has now already been crowned champion in each of the three Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) organizations under whose banner he has fought so far in his career.

After a few amateur fights as an MMA athlete, he made his debut in 2013 in the local Extreme Fighting Championship (EFC). Under the banner of the EFC, he fought 12 times and only lost once – against the famous Garreth “Soldierboy” McLellan, who later in his career also fought six times in the UFC. McLellan beat Du Plessis by submission or the guillotine choke method.

As an EFC fighter, Du Plessis achieved great success and was crowned champion in two different weight divisions.  He won his first title by beating the famous Martin van Staden in 2016 to be crowned welterweight champion. He then won the EFC middleweight title in 2017 when he beat Yannick “Black Mamba” Bahati of England.

In 2018, Du Plessis moved to Poland, where he was involved in three fights of the Polish Konfrontacja Sztuk Walki (KSW) MMA organization. He also became welterweight champion under this organization’s jurisdiction, before returning to South Africa to successfully defend his ECF middleweight title one last time in December 2019 against Brendan Lesar.

In early 2020, Du Plessis was approached by the UFC to fight under their banner. Due to the intervention of Covid19, he only participated as a UFC athlete for the first time in October of that year. However, he impressed the UFC’s bosses so much that he got more and more opportunities. Still undefeated after six fights, he became the first contender for the middleweight title, which he finally won this past weekend.

* With his excellent preparation and aggressive fighting style, Du Plessis has already received a bonus from the organizers four times in seven URC fights. His fight against Strickland was named “Fight of the night” after the tournament, earning each of them a US$50,000 bonus.

* During the UFC 297 tournament, Du Plessis explained to a Canadian journalist for the first time where his nickname “Stillknocks” came from.  Shortly before his first professional MMA fight, he realized that all the other contestants had nicknames, associated to their persona and invented to build their image in the sport.

After a discussion with his brother, and bearing in mind his particularly good knockout record as a kickboxer, the latter then suggested that he call himself “Stilnox”, after a type of sleeping pill with the same name. They played around with the spelling of the pill’s name to make it more applicable to martial arts and the name “Stillknocks” was born. That name, which has already been registered as a trademark, will probably eventually gain much greater fame than the pills, from which it was originally derived.

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