Dricus Du Plessis shares unexpected story behind his Colby Covington friendship

While Dricus Du
Plessis and Colby
Covington are on good terms, their friendship didn’t start
cordially.

The former
Ultimate Fighting Championship middleweight champ returned to
winning ways by earning a lopsided unanimous decision win over
Kamaru
Usman (21-5) in the main event at
UFC Oklahoma City. Meanwhile, Covington (17-5) defeated
Arman
Tsarukyan (24-3) in a massive upset in a wrestling match at RAF
11 to be crowned the inaugural crossover cruiserweight champion in
Milwaukee the same day.

“Stillknocks” has now revealed the aftermath of his recent
back-and-forth with Covington.

Dricus Du Plessis and Colby Covington went from trash talk to
friendship after UFC drama

Covington was backing du Plessis to defeat Usman, whom he shared
the cage with twice in welterweight title fights. Usman and
Covington had a heated rivalry when “The Nigerian Nightmare” was
the champion and the bitterness between the two continues to this
day.

Ahead of his bout with Usman, du Plessis revealed that he initially
slammed Covington for recommending non-alcoholic beer to Dustin
Poirier, who recently had a run-in with the law due to public
intoxication. However, the South African believes drinking
non-alcoholic beer is a graver crime than anything Poirier has
done.

Covington then invited du Plessis to share some beers, laying the
foundation for a friendship.

“I was giving him sht because he was giving Dustin Poirier sht
and telling him to drink alcohol-free beer and that’s a bigger
crime than anything Dustin Poirier has ever done,” du Plessis told
Full Send MMA. “I told [Covington] that and then he reached out to
me. He’s like, ‘Listen, they have normal beers too, let’s get some
normal beers with you.’ So, I’m a Colby fan.”

Dricus Du
Plessis explains how his friendship with Colby
Covington developed

“He was giving Dustin
Poirier s**t and telling him to drink non alcoholic beer and
that’s a bigger crime than anything Dustin
Poirier has ever done” pic.twitter.com/OSW3wWD9IM— FULL SEND
MMA (@full_send_mma)
July 19, 2026