Gilbert Burns reveals new details about Sean Strickland, Dricus Du Plessis UFC 296 brawl (Video)
By Amy Kaplan
We all know by now that Sean Strickland and Dricus Du Plessis fought each other in the crowd at UFC 296. We've seen every angle of what happened, probably more than once.
But UFC fighter Gilbert Burns has revealed new details about the now-infamous moment.
Burns and his wife and child were seated in the row between Strickland and Du Plessis.
Gilbert Burns says Sean Strickland 'already had the thing in his head' before attacking Dricus Du Plessis
Burns says that Strickland warned him long before the fight occurred that something might go down.
“When Sean came, he came and then he kind of looked at the guy, I think he’s already like, ‘Man, s***. You brought your wife and your kids?’” Burns said. “I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Yeah, this frickin’ guy is right there. I might do stuff with this guy.’ That was before the fight, when he walked in, he already had the thing in his head: ‘If I do something, I’ll give you the heads up.’ Whenever the thing started going down, this guy kind of looked at me and said, ‘Now.’”
We all saw Strickland politely tell the family to move aside before he flung himself across the rows and into the personal space of Du Plessis.
“He asked my son and my wife to move, so he pushed the seat down where he stepped,” Burns said. “The seat kind of fell through. They hit each other a little bit. People didn’t see that side of the camera. We saw because it was right there. There was kind of a little bit back and forth, it was nothing clean. And then Dana [White] came after the fight like, ‘What happened? Anyone got hurt? Anyone need anything?’ No, nothing happened to anyone.”
Strickland left the arena after the scuffle and the pair are set to officially fight on the main event of UFC 297 on Jan. 20 in Toronto, Canada.