How Much Are They Worth?
Celebrity fortunes, explained
How did Dricus Du Plessis build this fortune?
The answer unfolds through the career, earnings, deals and assets behind the headline estimate.
Before the fame
The background and early turning points that shaped Dricus Du Plessis’s route to prominence.
Dricus du Plessis, known as “Stillknocks,” was born on January 14, 1994, in Welkom, in South Africa’s Free State province. He is Afrikaner and bilingual in English and Afrikaans, details documented on Wikipedia’s profile of the fighter. He began training in judo at age five, added wrestling at twelve and took up kickboxing at fourteen, building the multi-discipline base that would later define his mixed martial arts style. Du Plessis went on to study agricultural economics at the University of Pretoria but withdrew during his final year to pursue fighting full time, a decision that set him on the path toward becoming one of South Africa’s most recognized athletes.
As an amateur kickboxer, du Plessis compiled a 33-0 record with 30 knockouts and won gold in the -86kg K-1 division at the 2012 WAKO Junior World Championships in Bratislava, becoming South Africa’s first ever medalist at that event, per the same Wikipedia summary of his combat sports background. He turned professional in mixed martial arts in 2013, reasoning that kickboxing alone offered limited earning potential. Competing for South Africa’s Extreme Fighting Championship, he won the promotion’s welterweight title in 2016 and its middleweight title in 2017. He then signed with Poland’s KSW organization, winning the welterweight championship in 2018 with a TKO over Roberto Soldic before losing the belt back to Soldic by third-round knockout in an immediate rematch later that year.
The breakthrough years
The career decisions and defining moments that turned recognition into sustained earning power.
Du Plessis made his UFC debut on October 10, 2020, stopping Markus Perez by first-round knockout. He built momentum with wins over Trevin Giles, earning a Performance of the Night bonus, Brad Tavares by decision, and Darren Till by third-round submission, a performance that earned Fight of the Night honors, according to his official UFC athlete profile. A corner-stoppage win over Derek Brunson in March 2023 pushed him into title contention, and at UFC 290 in July 2023 he stopped former champion Robert Whittaker in the second round in what was billed as a number-one contender bout, a result covered in detail by CBS Sports’ fight report. That win, and the accompanying Performance of the Night bonus, cemented him as the next challenger for the undisputed middleweight title.
What the work can earn
Reported pay, contracts, royalties and performance income reveal how the fortune was funded.
On January 20, 2024, at UFC 297 in Toronto, du Plessis defeated Sean Strickland by split decision to become the first South African fighter ever to win a UFC championship, a genuinely historic milestone for the country’s sport, confirmed by Wikipedia’s record of his title reign. He made his first defense at UFC 305 in Perth in August 2024, submitting former two-time champion Israel Adesanya in the fourth round with a face-crank choke, a finish that earned a Fight of the Night bonus and was later named ESPN’s Submission of the Year. He successfully defended again against Strickland in a rematch at UFC 312 in February 2025, this time by unanimous decision, before losing the title to the previously undefeated Khamzat Chimaev by unanimous decision at UFC 319 in August 2025. He returned to winning form in July 2026 with a Fight of the Night decision win over former champion Kamaru Usman, per his UFC profile, and currently holds a 24-3 professional record.
Becoming the first South African UFC champion turned du Plessis into a national sports hero. He has described watching his home country celebrate the UFC 297 win from bars and restaurants at six o’clock in the morning local time, and recalled the welcome he received back in Pretoria in UFC’s own feature on his rise, saying “I felt so loved. That’s our country. We’re so proud of our country.” His championship run brought a wave of outside recognition, including the World MMA Awards’ 2024 International Fighter of the Year, Combat Press’s 2023 Breakout Fighter of the Year, and a spot on MMA Fighting’s 2024 First Team All-Star list, honors that reflect both his in-cage success and his significance as a symbol of national pride.
The business beyond the main career
Endorsements, ownership interests and investments can keep compounding long after the initial breakthrough.
Du Plessis has built a South Africa-centered sponsorship portfolio alongside his UFC purses. Reporting from Briefly.co.za’s profile of his finances, corroborated separately by FanSided MMA’s earnings breakdown, names endorsement relationships with supplement brand Ultimate Sports Nutrition, betting operator World Sports Betting, where he serves as a global ambassador, broadcaster SuperSport, wellness brand Vivify U, and South African apparel company Hennies. Like every fighter on the current UFC roster, he also competes in gear supplied under the promotion’s exclusive outfitting deal with Venum. Exact dollar values for his individual personal endorsement deals have not been publicly disclosed.
There is no independently verified record of du Plessis founding, owning or holding a stake in a company outside his fighting career. He trains at CIT MMA in Hatfield, Pretoria, under coach Morne Visser, a commercial gym he is affiliated with rather than owns. Purse and earnings trackers that catalogue his income, including FanSided MMA’s breakdown of his finances, describe his income as built almost entirely around fight purses and personal endorsement deals rather than outside business investment, distinguishing him from UFC contemporaries who have launched apparel labels, gyms or media ventures of their own.
Notable luxury item
A reported property or major asset offers a tangible glimpse of the wealth behind the public estimate.
No reliable public record identifies a home, vehicle collection or other major asset owned by du Plessis. Earnings-tracking coverage of his career, including FanSided MMA’s fight-by-fight purse breakdown, catalogues his income in detail without documenting any property purchase, luxury vehicle or investment holding. That gap is consistent with a fighter whose largest paydays have only arrived since his 2024 title win, and it means this estimate assigns no separate value to real estate or vehicles, treating any undisclosed holdings as already reflected within general savings.
Dricus Du Plessis’s estimated net worth
Public estimates vary because private contracts, investments, taxes and liabilities are not fully disclosed.
How this estimate is calculated
This estimate starts from disclosed and reported UFC purses across du Plessis’s championship run. His UFC 297 title win was reported at roughly $632,000 in total pay, combining a $300,000 base purse, a matching $300,000 win bonus and $32,000 in sponsorship money, per TheSportster’s career earnings breakdown. His first title defense against Israel Adesanya at UFC 305 was reported at a disclosed $642,000, made up of a $500,000 base purse, a $100,000 win bonus and $42,000 in sponsorship money, according to The SportsRush’s payout report on that card. His February 2025 rematch win over Strickland at UFC 312 was estimated at roughly $1.64 million once pay-per-view points were included, a total cited by Surprise Sports, used here only as a secondary, supplementary source alongside the primary purse reporting above. His title-losing effort against Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 319 was estimated at approximately $3 million once pay-per-view revenue was factored in, even without a win bonus, and his July 2026 win over Kamaru Usman added a further disclosed $100,000 Fight of the Night bonus on top of an unpublished base purse. Career earnings before the 2024 title win were far smaller, described as “well under $1 million” cumulatively by TheSportster given typical prospect-level purses during his 2020 to 2023 UFC run. Weighing those disclosed and estimated purses against ongoing endorsement income from Ultimate Sports Nutrition, World Sports Betting, SuperSport, Vivify U and Hennies, and applying standard deductions for South African and multi-jurisdiction tax, coaching and team splits, training camp costs and management fees that typically remove a large share of a fighter’s gross purse, produces a moderate range rather than a single unverified figure.
There is no record of du Plessis having established a personal charitable foundation of his own. His fiancee, Vasti Spiller, to whom he became engaged on his birthday in January 2025, serves as an ambassador for the B Loved Foundation, which supports underprivileged communities in South Africa, a connection reported by Surprise Sports’ profile of the couple. Beyond that association, du Plessis’s public image is built heavily around South African patriotism, telling UFC’s own feature on his career that “I fight for something much, much bigger than myself. When I’m wearing that flag, I can’t do anything else than be exceptional,” a framing that has made him a unifying figure in South African sport well beyond the fight fan audience.
Du Plessis has faced two notable episodes of public scrutiny. In 2024, footage circulated showing his coach, Morne Visser, using a taser on fighters’ feet at CIT MMA as a training punishment for underperformance, a method that drew criticism of the gym’s culture, as documented on Wikipedia’s page on du Plessis. Separately, at a February 2025 press conference he called Donald Trump’s re-election “incredible” and described him as “an amazing president,” while also praising “fellow South African Elon Musk,” comments that drew attention given their politically charged nature in the middle of a fight promotional cycle. Earlier in his career, a pre-fight altercation with Sean Strickland in the crowd at UFC 296 in December 2023 also generated headlines, though it took place in a seating arrangement organized by the promotion itself rather than as a spontaneous incident. None of these episodes involve legal trouble or anti-doping violations.