In a rivalry full of close rounds and tiny adjustments, Dricus Du
Plessis once again proved he has Sean
Strickland’s number.
The main event of
UFC 312 on Saturday in Sydney featured du Plessis (23-2) and
Strickland (29-7) in a rematch of their meeting just over a year
ago at UFC 297, where the South African captured the title in a
closely contested split decision. With five rounds’ worth of
first-hand experience about one another’s skills, the champ and
challenger picked up more or less where they left off in their
first go-round last year, with a few added wrinkles. Du Plessis was
notably aggressive in the early going, working to keep Strickland
from getting into a rhythm and chaining his formidable jab by
throwing out a variety of techniques including body punches and
spinning back kicks. “Tarzan,” for his part, stuck with what
brought him to the pinnacle of the division in the first place:
crisp, patient boxing defined by the relentless jab and well-timed
right crosses. Much like their first meeting, Round 1 was a close
affair, with Strickland’s disciplined defense and conservative
offense keeping either fighter from truly putting a stamp on
things. Round 2 saw du Plessis achieve some separation, as he
tagged the challenger with body kicks that drew a reaction, as well
as a sharp jab of his own that bloodied Strickland’s mouth.
“Stillknocks” kept his foot on the gas—relatively speaking—in the
middle round, landing leg kicks, numerous body punches and a couple
of noteworthy head shots, including a spinning elbow that might
have leveled a lesser foe.
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With the rematch shaping up as a near replay of the first fight,
the true turning point came in the fourth round. Du Plessis caught
Strickland with a flush punch that smashed the American’s nose.
Strickland reacted instantly, retreating and checking his beak with
his hand as blood spurted. Du Plessis might have turned up the
pressure and looked for the finish, but incredibly, the challenger
regained his composure, caught Du Plessis on the counter and left
no question that he was still an active participant in the fight.
Nonetheless, he may have been down four rounds to none when he came
out for the final frame. Strickland went to work with a certain
urgency, but with a methodical style ill-equipped to finish fights
on demand, the result was similar to what had gone before. Du
Plessis, for his part, did nothing to sit on a lead, but instead
marched forward and threw punches and kicks with near-abandon as if
it was still anyone’s fight.
When the final horn sounded, the rivals embraced in a show of
respectful camaraderie, but there was no question who had won the
fight, and the official scorecards in favor of the champ (50-45,
50-45, 49-46) bore that out. The win brought Du Plessis’ mark in
the promotion to a spotless 9-0, while Strickland fell to 16-7 in
the Octagon. The champ has plenty of interesting contenders lining
up for their shots, including Nassourdine
Imavov, Khamzat
Chimaev and perhaps Caio
Borralho, if he can get past Jared
Cannonier next month; Strickland now faces an uphill battle
back to the title picture for as long as the South African is on
top.
Zhang Dominates Suarez
In the co-main event, Weili Zhang
entered the cage as the betting underdog to Tatiana
Suarez despite being one of the UFC’s most dominant champs and
a top pound-for-pound fighter, and as a certain basketball great
once famously said, she appeared to take that personally. No matter
how one felt about the betting line, the prevailing wisdom held
that Suarez’s wrestling represented a threat unlike any the champ
had yet faced, and that indeed proved to be the case—for about half
a round.
Once the fight began, Suarez promptly answered one of the key
questions about the matchup, as she used a body lock and trip to
take the champ down with ease in the first 30 seconds, landing in
side control. Zhang remained calm and patient, regaining guard,
then returning to her feet with about a minute left. Suarez
promptly grabbed a guillotine choke, wrapped Zhang in her guard and
went to her back, looking for the finish. Zhang fought her way out
quickly and set up shop in the challenger’s guard but could not
land any offense of note and was forced to defend another front
choke before the round expired. The second round saw Suarez go for
another early takedown, and she managed to haul Zhang to the
canvas, but Zhang instantly bucked her over and swept to top
position. Suarez escaped to her feet before Zhang truly
capitalized, but Zhang tagged her with several clean punches and
kicks before Suarez track her down again. By the later part of
Round 2, Suarez appeared to be showing the effects of her own
wrestling-heavy approach, and Zhang took the fatigued challenger
down, where she applied methodical ground-and-pound until the horn.
As she returned to her corner, Suarez sported a severe cut on her
right knee, caused by a collision with the fence during a
scramble.
Zhang began pouring it on in the middle frame, rebuffing Suarez’s
tired-looking attempts at closing the distance and punishing her
with big punches. Less than two minutes in, Zhang scored with a
blistering right cross that buckled the challenger’s knees and
elicited a desperation takedown attempt. As her opponent flagged,
Zhang remained ice-cold and composed, forcing the wrestler to come
forward and meeting her with hard, accurate counters. Only the
champ’s deliberate approach and Suarez’s innate grit ensured that
the championship rounds would be needed, but the momentum was
unquestionably with Zhang as the two women came out for Round 4. It
was more of the same, however, with the only real surprise coming
when Zhang was the one to bring the fight to the floor. Once there,
“Magnum” was every bit as methodical on the ground as she had been
on the feet, applying relentless pressure and threatening with a
head-and-arm choke in the middle of the round. Suarez’s own
considerable grappling chops and 15 minutes plus worth of sweat
allowed her to escape, but that was the lone bright spot in a
complete whitewashing of a round.
As the champ and challenger came out for the final frame, it was
apparent to all that the challenger was hopelessly behind on the
scorecards, and to her credit, Suarez came out aggressively and
tried yet again to bring the action to the ground, but Zhang was
both an immovable object and an unstoppable force. Zhang easily
defended Suarez’s takedown, then initiated her own, which she
secured with the aid of a desperate guillotine attempt by Suarez.
Once there, she settled into the American’s full guard, applied
heavy top pressure and spent the balance of the fight chipping away
with short, hard ground strikes.
The official decision figured to be a mere formality, quantifying
yet another dominant performance by one of the sport’s most
dominant fighters, and the judges held up their end of the bargain,
turning in scores of 49-46, 49-46 and 49-45 in favor of “Magnum.”
With the victory, her third successful defense since regaining the
belt a little over two years ago, Zhang moved to 10-2 in the UFC
and bolstered her case to be called the greatest strawweight of all
time. Suarez fell to 7-1 in the UFC as her long-delayed,
long-anticipated shot at gold ended in misery.
Teixeira Melts Tafa
He may be the tallest fighter in the UFC, but Talisson Teixeira
(8-0) made short work of his debut assignment, dropping Justin Tafa
(7-5, 1 NC) with a withering volley of clinch strikes in the first
round of their heavyweight tilt. The 6-foot-8 “Xicao” enjoyed
massive advantages in height and reach over the squat
Kiwi-Australian but ended up doing his nastiest work in close
quarters. After shoving “Bad Man” to the fence, Teixeira uncorked a
brutal knee to the gut, followed by a level elbow that landed
squarely on the bridge of Tafa’s nose. Tafa collapsed to all fours,
with Teixeira giving him another glancing knee to the head on the
way down. Referee Rich
Mitchell was on the spot for the stoppage, pulling the towering
Brazilian off of his foe at just 35 seconds of Round 1. Tafa
protested as he rose, but the result went down as a TKO win for
Teixeira, who moved to 1-0 in the UFC while keeping intact his 100%
finish rate; none of his fights have needed a second round, and
only one has made it past the midpoint of Round 1. Meanwhile,
Tafa’s Octagon tally fell to 4-5 with one no contest as he has
dropped consecutive bouts for the first time since 2021.
Crute, Bellato Slug Their Way to Majority Draw
Jimmy
Crute (12-4-2) and Rodolfo
Bellato (12-2-1) threw everything but the kitchen sink at one
another in a light heavyweight scrap characterized by huge swings
in momentum—and a casual approach towards striking defense. A
tentative start nearly turned to a quick finish when Bellato missed
on a takedown attempt and pulled Crute directly into mount. “The
Brute” moved to Bellato’s back and tried to apply a rear-naked
choke, but did not have quite the angle to finish. Bellato managed
to regain half guard but the onslaught continued, as Crute stayed
all over the Brazilian through a series of scrambles, applying
heavy punches and elbows anytime Bellato stopped moving. “Trator”
finally managed to sweep and escape to his feet with 30 seconds to
go, but any relief was short-lived. Crute dropped Bellato with a
right hand that froze him where he stood. Bellato crumpled in slow
motion and Crute swarmed with punches as referee Marc Goddard
looked on closely. Bellato survived to hear the horn, but it earned
him only a temporary reprieve. Crute came out for Round 2 and
immediately went back to work, rocking Bellato with punches. The
Brazilian regained his wits and composure, however, and as Round 2
wore on, he began to score with low kicks and punches upstairs.
With under two minutes to go, the fatigued-looking Crute regrouped,
smashing Bellato with uppercuts and a mean right hook. Bellato
responded in kind, and the middle round expired with the two
slugging away. Both men were visibly tired entering the final
round, but neither gave an inch, leading to a grueling slugfest in
the middle of the cage, with haymakers going both ways, aided on
Bellato’s side by continued investment in low kicks. Crute
interrupted things with a takedown, but Bellato sprang back to his
feet right away and the brawl resumed. At the midpoint of Round 3,
Bellato timed Crute for an easy takedown of his own but let him
back up moments later with no damage done. The Sydney crowd made
its appreciation heard in the final 30 seconds, and the light
heavyweight sluggers responded by trading until the final horn. The
fight felt close in the moment, and the judges appeared to agree,
turning in a majority draw via scores of 29-27 Crute and 28-28
twice.
Matthews Boxes Up Prado
In the pay-per-view opener, Jake
Matthews (21-7) gave onetime lightweight prospect Francisco
Prado (12-3) a rude welcome to the welterweight division,
winning nearly every moment of their 15-minute affair. Matthews was
sharper fighter in the early going, especially on the feet, where
he leveraged his height and reach advantages and frustrated the
burly Argentinian with a crisp jab, some well-timed body kicks and
solid footwork. Prado managed some offense late in the round,
grounding Matthews with a hard takedown from an inside trip, but
with under a minute left to work, he did not manage to capitalize
with any significant offense. In Round 2, “The Celtic Kid” picked
up right where he left off, keeping his opponent on the outside,
where Prado looked little like the aggressive scrapper he had been
at 155 pounds. As the horn sounded on an easy round for the
Australian, Prado was bleeding heavily from a cut above the
hairline, received during an inadvertent clash of heads early in
the frame. The cutman did a brilliant job staunching the wound
between rounds, but metaphorically speaking, there was no stopping
the bleeding: Matthews continued putting on a quiet clinic in
counterpunching and distance management. On the occasions that
Prado tried to make something happen to turn the momentum, Matthews
made him pay, as he did around the midpoint of the round when he
caught an onrushing Prado with a hard right uppercut that stopped
him in his tracks. Matthews closed things out by initiating the
clinch late, pressing his shorter foe into the cage and landing a
series of short strikes including a hard right knee at the horn.
The judges had an easy task and responded properly with 30-27 cards
across the board. The victory gave Matthews his first win streak in
nearly five years and brought his tally to 14-7 since joining the
UFC as a teenage prospect over a decade ago. In defeat, Prado fell
to 1-3 in the Octagon and 0-1 in his new division.