Dricus Du Plessis punches Sean StricklandJeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC
UFC middleweight champion Dricus Du Plessis was the picture of dominance in his rematch with Sean Strickland, bloodying his trash-talking challenger to a clear-cut unanimous decision win.
However, the South African star may want to hold off on celebrating too hard just yet, as his win cleared the way for what might be the toughest fight of his career: a showdown with undefeated juggernaut Khamzat Chimaev.
Du Plessis’s second meeting with Strickland headlined Saturday’s UFC 312 card in Sydney, Australia. It occurred just over one year after their first encounter, which saw Du Plessis claim the middleweight title with a narrow split-decision victory in Toronto, Canada. That verdict left plenty of room for debate as to who was the superior middleweight, but Du Plessis put that debate to bed Down Under.
“I wanted a submission or a knockout or an absolute domination of a five-rounder, and that’s what I gave,” he told color commentator Daniel Cormier in his post-fight interview.
Du Plessis began to have success very early in the fight — so much so that play-by-play man Jon Anik was proclaiming the champ was “starting to flow” before the first round was even over. Strickland, meanwhile, seemed to have a hard time getting going, and unfortunately, that didn’t really change as the fight progressed.
It was a terrible performance from Strickland — reminiscent of Colby Covington’s disastrous 2023 title shot against Leon Edwards, not because the challenger failed to do much of anything throughout the fight, but because he’d made countless boastful promises to the contrary in the lead-up to it, and completely failed to deliver on them. Unfortunately for him, Du Plessis didn’t slow down either. The champion had drawn blood by the end of round two, and continued to pour on the offense into round three, landing big punches and even a spinning elbow in close, and widening what was already a notable scoring lead.
The champion’s best round came in round four when he landed a massive punch that clearly shattered Strickland’s nose, and left the American wearing a mask of blood. The impact got an immediate impact from Strickland, who immediately began to paw at his nose, and seemed more or less out of options by the time the round ended.
Heading into the fifth, Strickland got a firm talking-to from his coach Eric Nicksick, who begged him to crank up the offense — as he had several times already in the fight. Unlike Nicksick’s previous attempts, this 11th-hour pep talk seemed to have some effect, as Strickland finally started to throw with consequence in the fifth, but Du Plessis was wise to it, and offered plenty of return fire. In other words, it was too little, too late for the challenger. By the time the scorecards were being read, no question would be leaving Sydney with the belt.
“He wanted to stand and bang and I was willing to give that,” Du Plessis told Cormier once the fight was over.
Toward the end of his post-fight interview, Du Plessis set his sights on a fight with UFC light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira, who was in Sydney to support Strickland, who has become one of his regular training partners. That would certainly be a big fight — and it may well happen soon — but Du Plessis has other business to take care of first in Chimaev.
Most fans who aren’t enamored with Strickland’s stream-of-consciousness trash talk agreed that Chimaev deserved the opportunity to fight for the title before the American got a shot a redemption against Du Plessis. The Russian is undefeated, with recent wins over the likes of Kamaru Usman, Kevin Holland, and Gilbert Burns, and in his last fight, mauled middleweight legend Robert Whittaker to a violent, first-round submission win. That win over Whittaker — who Strickland spent much of last year refusing to fight — was more impressive than anything the American has done outside of beating Israel Adesanya to win the middleweight title in 2023. Chimaev is also at least as big of a star as Strickland.
For whatever reason, the UFC saw fit to have Du Plessis and Strickland run it back first, but now that that’s been taken care of, it’s time to do what’s right and give Chimaev his opportunity.
It’s an opportunity he has seemed destined for since he arrived in the UFC during the Covid-19 pandemic, and rattled off three straight stoppage wins in a matter of months. While his progress has been slowed by health issues, he is now undeniable.
At this point, Du Plessis is clearly one of the best pound-for-pound fighters alive. While he tends to fight like his shoelaces are tied together, his awkward style has proven incredibly effective, confounding the likes of Adesanya, Whittaker, and Strickland.
Despite that, he might well enter the cage with Chimaev as an underdog — maybe even a significant one. One way or the other, it’s one of the most compelling fights that the UFC could make right now and one that will have fans marking their calendars in anticipation — which could hardly be said of Du Plessis’s UFC 312 rematch with Strickland.
There’s no other fight to make. Now’s the time.
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