If there was a persistent doubt, Dricus du Plessis closed it for good in his revenge match of the UFC 312 with Sean Strickland.
Just 13 months after their first polarizing meeting, from Plessis Bloody Strickland and seriously broke the American nose on the way to a unanimous unanimous decision to defend his Average weight of the UFC on Saturday evening in the main event of UFC 312 at Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney, Australia.
After 25 minutes of Du Plessis dictating the action and leading the dance, the judges marked the fight 50-45, 50-45 and 49-46 for the South African champion.
“I said it already, putting it out of service is almost impossible,” said Plessis after the fight. “I would have loved another tour but it is not the game. I told you that I wanted a submission or a knock-out or an absolutely domination of a five red. This is what I gave.
“I am a fighter among the three books for books from tonight, and I come for this place n ° 1.”
Du Plessis (23-2) defeated Strickland (29-7) in a shared decision somewhat controversial in January 2024 to win the title of 185 pounds, although Strickland remained categorical that he should have won the fight.
But Du Plessis, 31, closed the book on the rivalry of the duo in a resounding way on Saturday, beating Strickland, 33, in a pure strike case and seriously damaging his frank challenger.
“DDP” has always found a house early with a range of punches and kicks in the median section and the legs of Strickland, softening the defense of the Strickland brand and opening opportunities for hard fire to the floor in the later towers. Du Plessis connected to a thunderous rotation backfist and an elbow in rotation in the third round, but it was the right bomb that broke Strickland’s nose in the fourth round that turned out to be the night .
Blood has instantly started to flow from Stickland’s nose like a tap, leaving the challenger wearing a crimson mask and inciting Plessis to compose its aggression even more. The tenacity of Strickland combined with his game of meat blows and pots come out of first speed.
Strickland has now lost two of his last three fights since the superb Israel Adesanya to win the UFC’s average weight title in 2023 in one of the biggest upheavals in recent years.
“When this F *** Er broke my nose, I said to myself:” Oh, that is not well “, I replied it, I continued to fight for you,” said Strickland after the fight.
“The Dutchman is a bad mother *** Er, he kicked my ass and the square, the accessories for him.”
A notable adjustment for Plessis in the Revenge match was a complete abandonment of his struggle. From the Plessis won six of the 11 withdrawal attempts during his battle in 2024 against Strickland, but only made 1 in 2 in the revenge match on Saturday. However, he exceeded Strickland from 149 to 128 in total strikes.
With his last victory and his second successful defense of the title of average weights of the UFC, Plessis in South Africa comes in a draw with Chris Weidman for the third greatest sequence of victories (9) in the history of average weights UFC, falling only behind the ancient UFC champions Addesanya (12) and Anderson Silva (13).
Even in defeat, however, there was a silver lining for Strickland – he exceeded the retired legend of MMA Michael Bisping to claim the unique property of the most important strikes landed in the history of the average weight of the UFC .
The complete results of the UFC 312 can be found here.
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