UFC middleweight champion Dricus du Plessis was all business in his first faceoff with challenger Sean Strickland as they met following the UFC 312 pre-fight press conference on Thursday.
Following a first encounter that ended in a razor-close split decision with du Plessis leaving as champion, Strickland has made it a point all week that he wants his revenge and promises not to allow this fight to end up as such a back-and-forth affair. Of course, Strickland also spouted off about du Plessis, Khamzat Chimaev and even his teammate Tatiana Suarez while constantly getting a rise out of the raucous crowd in Sydney, Australia.
For his part, du Plessis didn’t allow the boos to bother him much as he continued to respond to Strickland but ultimately the fighters even took time to compliment each other during the question and answer session.
In the co-main event, Zhang Weili puts her strawweight title up for grabs against Suarez, who comes into the fight with an undefeated record and a belief that she would already be champion if not for a litany of injuries that have forced her to miss significant amounts of time during her UFC career.
At her best, Suarez has been an absolute wrecking machine in the cage but it remains to be seen if she can do the same to Zhang, who has been a dominant champion since reclaiming the belt with a lopsided win over Carla Esparza in 2022.
Zhang also boasts a pair of wins over arguably the greatest strawweight champion in UFC history in Joanna Jedrzejcyzk but she’ll face a different kind of challenge from a former Olympic wrestling hopeful in Suarez, who maintains one of the nastiest grappling games in the sport.
UFC 312 goes down Saturday night from Australia with the pay-per-view broadcast set to begin at 10 p.m. ET.
Damon Martin
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