Dricus du Plessis is not a happy camper after being forced off of UFC 273 after he failed to find an opponent. The South African middleweight was supposed to be taking on Kelvin Gastelum before an injury scratched him from the fight.

Dricus du Plessis was hoping the fight could still happen and the UFC was looking to find a replacement for him. It wasn't to be and the South African was not happy at all.

“It’s his fault,” UFC middleweight du Plessis said of Gastelum on a recent edition of The MMA Hour. “He postponed to cancel the fight. Nobody wants to take a fight on a week’s notice. It’s hard to take a fight, especially on a week’s notice. And here Gastelum comes and waits until a week before the fight to all of a sudden say, ‘No, I’m injured,’ when he insisted on a new fight. It’s frustrating and a little bit disrespectful toward opponents and the sport as a whole.”

There was plenty of anger from Dricus du Plessis because of the timing of the injury in question. UFC 273 was just around the corner and Kelvin Gastelum announced he was out of the fight after being ‘compromised.'

“Who gets an injury a week before a fight?” UFC middleweight du Plessis asked. “What could you possibly be doing to get injured, and if he was injured, you don’t know what the camp was like, but why would he insist on having a new opponent when he had to pull out? … So he wasn’t injured on Monday, because that’s [when] he insisted on the fight, and all of a sudden, he’s injured on Friday? That sounds very fishy to me.

“I guess they started watching tape and that’s where the problems started, to be honest. … He really needs a win – let’s not beat around the bush, he needs a win – and this is a great opportunity for him. He’s fighting a guy who’s making some noise, a South African guy, he’s ranked No. 20, and he finds out, let’s get this easy fight and get in the win column. … Then he watched the tape and realized this is no walkover fight.”

The anger isn't towards the UFC, Dricus du Plessis confirmed. He has a problem with Kelvin Gastelum because now he won't be getting paid after doing everything to be ready for UFC 273 this week.

“I’m not angry at the UFC; it’s a little bit out of their control, to be honest,” he said. “I’m angry at Kelvin. No disrespect, I’ve always been a fan, but right now, what he did was he literally took food off my table. I don’t even care about the money. I was in there to become a champion as soon as possible, to get in that top-10, and he took my opportunity to perform. He took it away from me – he took the eight weeks of hard, intense training, my 12 weeks in camp – he took all that away from me, all the hard work, everything that was spent from coaches to nutritionists, everything that put in some sort of effort to get to this point. He took that away because he didn’t feel like fighting. He didn’t like the risk, and he made me give up my opponent.

“It’s his fault. He postponed to cancel the fight. Nobody wants to take a fight on a week’s notice. It’s hard to take a fight, especially on a week’s notice. And here Gastelum comes and waits until a week before the fight to all of a sudden say, ‘No, I’m injured,’ when he insisted on a new fight. It’s frustrating and a little bit disrespectful toward opponents and the sport as a whole.”