UFC 312: How Du Plessis Defeated Strickland, What’s Next for the Middleweight Champion

• Dricus du Plessis clinches victory over Sean Strickland yet again as the South African retained his UFC middleweight title
• The Pretoria-born fighter won the bout in an unanimous decision after the two MMA stars failed to knock each other out in five rounds
• A combat sports analyst has explained how DDP triumphed over the American fighter and gave a detailed response on what's next for the UFC Middleweight Champion

South African fighter Dricus du Plessis defended his UFC middleweight title successfully after defeating Sean Strickland at the Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney, Australia.

The 31-year-old won the bout by unanimous decisions, as he retains his title for the second time in a row.

How Du Plessis defeated Strickland

Combat Sports analyst Afolabi Ojabowale in an exclusive interview with Briefly News explained how DDP managed to get the deserved victory over Strickland.

"In a night that Israel Adesanya became a UFC hall of famer, Strickland and DDP went to war and gave us an impressive fight," he said

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"So DDP won, and one of the major differences between this and their first fights was that Sean was not training as much offense as he did in the first fight, DDP had more output, like he was throwing a lot more strikes and was not just like choosing one target was going to the head, going to the body, going to the legs and you know right from the first round and that continued into the round two so Sean Strickland that normally would be more offensive was not offensive was just you know slow and not training attacks and I think round three the DDP broke Sean Strickland's nose, it was just downhill from there.

"It was a good fight, and with the way that this one was one side, it's obvious that there's no going to be talks about any trilogy in the future so it was a good win for DDP."

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What's next for DDP?

Ojabowale also opened up on what's next for Dricus du Plessis after defeating Strickland. He mentioned the potential next opponent for DDP.

"What's next for him is definitely going to be Khamzat Chimaev, that's the only right answer," he said.

"So I'm sure that before the middle of 2025, between June and August they're likely going to announce that fight, and it's a fight that everybody has been looking forward to, Khamzat actually fighting for a title in the UFC and it's going to be interesting."

How much Du Plessis made compared to Strickland

Briefly News earlier did a breakdown of what Dricus du Plessis and Sean Strickland earned for their championship fight in Sydney, Australia.

The South African fighter reportedly took home the highest amount in his UFC career after the fight while the American was way too behind with his earnings.

Source: Briefly News