A pair of title bouts will top the marquee, including a middleweight championship rematch, as UFC 312 sets to invade Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney, Australia, on Feb. 9.
Dricus du Plessis (22-2) will look to make the second defense of his 185-pound title in the main event when he meets Sean Strickland (29-6), the man whom he captured the title from via split decision in January. In the co-headliner, Zhang Weili (25-3) continues her second reign as women’s strawweight champion when she welcomes Tatiana Suarez (10-0).
The pair of title bouts were announced Saturday during the UFC 310 pay-per-view broadcast as the promotion is set to visit Sydney for the seventh time overall and first since UFC 293 last September when Strickland upset Israel Adesanya in their middleweight title bout.
Du Plessis, a 30-year-old native of South Africa who is riding a 10-fight unbeaten streak, will look to improve to 9-0 inside the Octagon. DDP submitted Adesanya, the former two-time champion, via fourth-round face crank when the two met at UFC 305 in August.
Strickland, 33, bounced back from his close loss to du Plessis by earning a split decision over Paulo Costa in June. The native of Anaheim, California, received the call for the rematch despite a strong case made for a title shot by unbeaten contender Khamzat Chimaev, who dominantly submitted former champion Robert Whittaker in October.
The first Chinese-born champion in UFC history, the 34-year-old Zhang will snap a 10-month layoff when she returns for the first time since a decision win over countrywoman Yan Xiaonan at UFC 300 in April. Save for a pair of back-to-back title losses to Rose Namajunas in 2021, Zhang is 9-0 against everyone else since making her UFC debut in 2018.
The oft-injured Suarez, a 33-year-old native of Covina, California, gets her first shot at a UFC title in what will be her first appearance in the Octagon since August 2023 when she submitted former champion Jessica Andrade. A master grappler who won Season 23 of “The Ultimate Fighter” in 2016, Suarez is 7-0 in the UFC with four victories by submission.
