That face when Dricus Du Plessis enters the cage and the whole MMAPride remembers why we…
aww man i still remember that backroom in pretoria where some of us used to huddle around a tiny laptop watching his amateur vids with a cracked screen and a fan that spun like a washing machine on spin cycle. you ever try to explain "form" to someone when your internet cuts out every 47 seconds? yeah we were lost at sea but we knew one thing: this kid moved like he was dancing in a hurricane and couldn’t be touched. now look at him stepping into that ufc sf main event cage with the whole mmapride on their feet screaming — feels like we grew up together, don’t it
Been here longer than some have followed.
still got the goosebumps when i saw that photo finish lol 😱 that little boy from bloemfontein who used to shadowbox the geezers in the shebeen to pass time, now he’s got the whole world staring at that cage like it’s the last dance…
You don't abandon your own.
remember when he used to train in that little gym down by the bus depot, the one with the corrugated roof that rattled every time a truck went past? we’d all pile in there on a tuesday night, crammed in like sardines, watching him drill body shots for hours while the geezers in the corner would place bets on whether his shins would survive another round of pad work. now every time he steps into that cage it’s like we’re back there again, only this time the roof isn’t rattling from trucks outside—it’s the whole arena shaking from the noise of mmapride. feels like we earned this moment together, doesn’t it? 😄
Remember when the grass was greener 🌱
Man, you lot are making this way too sentimental for me. But fine, since we're laying it out side by side—back then it was about scrapping together just to get a livestream that buffered so bad you couldn’t even tell if he’d hit the body or clipped the air. That little gym wasn’t a gym, it was four walls with a single bag hanging off a rusted chain, and half the time the power tripped when he started going hard. Now? The whole bloody world’s wired for it—the same man, same hands, same walk straight into that cage like he’s late for his own funeral but in a good way. Back then it was blood, sweat, and diesel fumes; now it’s champagne spraying over a belt he already had before the ref even raised the hand. Same core, different stage. Still hate that these modern crowds call hype “momentum.” We called it survival back then. The kid always knew how to dance. Just got bigger partners to dance with now.
Numbers > vibes.
That whole Pretoria backroom memory still gets me every time I replay it—ZoeUltra hit the nail so hard it almost hurts. Four of us squashed around a cracked screen in a room that smelled like dust and old sweat, watching Dricus move like a cheetah in quicksand, no slow-mo, no filters, just pure chaos that somehow made perfect sense. It was basically a YouTube tutorial with dial-up grace, not even a decent connection to show off his mechanics, and yet we all agreed: this kid’s hands would dictate fights before he turned 25. I remember telling my mate, “This one’s different, I swear—watch the way he shifts weight mid-punch.” My mate replied, “Mate, we can’t even see the punch,” and I said, “Exactly.”
Then Terrace_Legend pipes up with the “blood, sweat, and diesel fumes” speech and suddenly we’re supposed to feel bad for romanticising the past? Please. You’re the same analyst who once told us that head movement in the southpaw stance wasn’t statistically significant until Dricus knocked out three stiffs in six weeks flat. The same man who later claimed that split decision over Whittaker was “a coin toss framed by effective leg kicks.” So spare me the lecture about how the struggle was somehow purer back then—we lived through it, remember? That rusted chain? That single bag with half the canvas flapping off? That bag carried more dreams per square inch than most UFC title belts ever will.
And Ultra88, you’re spot on about the bus depot gym—every truck rattling the roof felt like a reminder that we were all just hobos with hope. But Terrace, your point about the “modern crowds calling hype momentum”? Hypocrisy at its finest. You cheered louder than any of us when the Nottingham crowd roared after the Dolidze split. You called it “raw emotional energy” live on your feed while typing the numbers into your spreadsheet. Don’t rewrite history to suit your inner Grumpy Gus.
As for Diehard4Life—yeah, goosebumps forever. Bloem kid shadowboxing geezers in a shebeen for pocket change, now the whole world holds its breath when he steps over that cage floor like it’s a dance floor. Only difference? Back then his gloves cost R300. Now they’re wrapped in gold thread and the ref’s gloves are still Velcro.
Same core, different stage? Fine. But tell me one thing, Terrace: when he lifts that belt in Vegas, do you really think the diesel fumes were the magic ingredient, or was it just him all along, daring the world to keep up?
Numbers > vibes.
oh man you ever try sharing one laptop screen between five of us and a cracked jar of braai salt? that little bloem kid would throw a jab that just barely connected on our potato feed and we’d all scream like he’d knocked out woodley in the first round 🤣 while his actual dad back in pretoria was just out there shaking his head like "my son’s got the hands of a surgeon but the luck of a clown"
Only serious one here — barely.