Dricus du Plessis thinks Belal Muhammad might be barking up the wrong tree.

The UFC welterweight champion recently took a shot at the entire middleweight division, including champion du Plessis, telling Barstool Chicago, “185 is probably the easiest weight class — besides Khamzat [Chimaev]. When you look at that [UFC 312] main event, you’re like, ‘Bro, Strickland and du Plessis suck.’”

During an interview with The Ariel Helwani Show, du Plessis responded to Muhammad’s boast with a few cracks of his own.

“Belal Muhammad, I can’t even remember the way he fights, I don’t know,” du Plessis said. “Has he ever finished anyone? … I mean, I like how he acts as if he has a choice to ever go up to 185. The UFC will never let him. If he wanted to, he’d have to abandon his belt, give up his belt, vacate, and go up to 185, and there’s no way they give him a direct title shot. There’s no way. The UFC doesn’t even like Belal Muhammad.

“He hasn’t even defended his belt once. He’s definitely better on Twitter than he is when he fights; let’s just say that.”

Despite du Plessis and Muhammad—currently No. 6 and No. 7 in the MMA Fighting Pound-for-Pound Rankings, respectively—dismissing each other as opponents, the two are both in the middle of dominant runs. Du Plessis defeated Sean Strickland in a rematch at UFC 312 to record his second straight middleweight title defense and improve to 9-0 in the UFC, while Muhammad has gone undefeated in 11 straight fights dating back to 2019, capped off by a one-sided decision win over Leon Edwards at UFC 304 this past July to claim the welterweight belt.

A matchup between the two would generate headlines, but du Plessis only sees a mismatch on paper.

“No, that would be unfair,” du Plessis said. “If I fight Belal Muhammad, it would be unfair. One hundred percent, have you seen the size of the man? What is he going to do? Is he going to get somebody to help him? Is he going to sit on somebody’s neck? How is it going to work? He’s the smallest—I couldn’t believe that he’s at 170 when I saw him. I couldn’t believe that he fights at 170.”

Pressed for a prediction on how a fight with Muhammad might go, du Plessis was succinct.

“I step on his head and it’s over,” du Plessis said. “That’s how that fight goes.”

Du Plessis’ comments made the rounds on social media, drawing a response from Muhammad, who wrote, “He can barely walk without tripping over his own feet. He ain’t touching me.”

Though nothing is official, both champions appear to have their next title defenses lined up, with du Plessis expected to face Khamzat Chimaev, and Muhammad waiting to re-book a postponed bout with challenger Shavkat Rakhmonov.