Dricus du Plessis defends title, defeats Sean Strickland for second time in UFC 312 main event
The Ultimate Fighting Championship returned to us tonight, February 8, 2025, for UFC 312, going down live from the Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney, Australia.
Headlining the UFC 312 event was a middleweight title bout between Dricus du Plessis (23-2) and former champion Sean Strickland (29-7), a rematch of their UFC 297 encounter that saw du Plessis claim the title via split decision in a very close fight.
Since then they’d each fought once, Strickland defeating former title challenger Paulo Costa (SD) at UFC 302, and du Plessis making the first defense of his title against former two-time middleweight champion Israel Adesanya (neck crank).
Continue reading to see how our UFC 312 middleweight championship main event went down:
Official Result: Dricus du Plessis def. Sean Strickland via unanimous decision (50-45, 50-45, 49-46)
Round one played out much like their first fight did, the two going toe to toe throughout. Strickland landed a few solid jabs, du Plessis landing a question mark kick to the head and also a spinning back kick to the body through the opening five minutes.
Strickland started to let his jab go more in the second, occasionally following it up with a cross and at one point a hook combination. Du Plessis landed or partially landed two more head kicks, a few body kicks, and started to let his hands go as the round went on.
Du Plessis continued landing a wide array of strikes onto the challenger in round three, including one each a spinning back fist and spinning back elbow, both of which landed perfectly. Strickland landed with a lot of accuracy when he threw, but he wasn’t as active as the champion.
Du Plessis landed a vicious right hand in round four that shattered Strickland’s nose, which immediately began gushing blood. The champion swarmed him, marching forward and landing heavy combinations, but Strickland fired back and landed a lot of his own good punches in this stretch.
Du Plessis continued to out-strike Strickland throughout the fifth and final round, making the second defense of his middleweight title tonight at UFC 312 and moving to 2-0 in this series.
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