UFC News & FeaturesThe Ultimate Fighting Championship will hit the road once again, as UFC 305 lands at the RAC Arena this Saturday in Perth, Australia. The main event sees the long-awaited middleweight title fight between Dricus Du Plessis and Israel Adesanya finally take place. Beyond that, there’s the expected Oceanic flavor with a little bit of everything else. A flyweight co-headliner pitting Kai Kara-France against Steve Erceg should make for an entertaining scrap between 125-pound contenders; Dan Hooker gets tasked with the challenge of neutralizing Mateusz Gamrot’s wrestling attack at lightweight; and pure heavyweight madness should ensue between Tai Tuivasa and Jairzinho Rozenstruik. Add in the return of Jingliang Li in a test of rising welterweight prospect Carlos Prates, and a compelling five-fight package takes shape.
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UFC Middleweight Championship
#11 P4P | Dricus Du Plessis (21-2, 7-0 UFC) vs. #13 P4P | Israel Adesanya (24-3, 13-3 UFC)ODDS: Adesanya (-122), du Plessis (+102)
They took an unexpected path to get here, but Adesanya and Du Plessis finally get to settle their longstanding grudge. Adesanya has been mercurial to say the least over the course of his UFC career, but his talent is undeniable, particularly after one of the fastest rises in the promotion’s history. A standout kickboxer, Adesanya dabbled in mixed martial arts for years and was an obvious offensive threat, but his improvement upon signing with the UFC and dedication to his new sport was shockingly outstanding. It took Adesanya all of nine months to go from struggling with Rob Wilkinson’s wrestling to neutralizing and knocking out Derek Brunson, and less than a year after that, he was unseating middleweight champion Robert Whittaker in dominant fashion, taking all of his shine as the face of Oceanic MMA in the process. That remains the pure high-water mark for Adesanya in terms of electricity and momentum, but the ensuing five years have been no less fascinating, full of highs, lows and plenty of personal drama that has played out inside the cage. After capping off 2019 with the Whittaker win, Adesanya’s 2020 campaign was certainly a mixed bag, as he managed to live up to the longtime Anderson Silva comparisons in multiple ways. A decision win over Yoel Romero was the type of overly patient, ugly and uninspiring clunker that Silva would throw out at times, while his next title defense against Paulo Costa was absolute dominance against an opponent who looked unfit to share the Octagon with Adesanya in multiple ways. After an unsuccessful move up to light heavyweight to challenge then-champion Jan Blachowicz, Adesanya went back down to 185 pounds and ruled the roost as dominant champion, even if his performances left something to be desired at points. Most of Adesanya’s title defenses were one-way traffic, but a lot of the electricity that “The Last Stylebender” brought to the cage seemed gone. While Adesanya was once willing to combine his kickboxing skill with an aggression that would overwhelm opponents, he now favored a distance-heavy style that allowed him to peck at opponents from range, often flummoxing his foes early and then coasting to a decision win. Just when it seemed like Adesanya had cleaned out the division, his career got a shot in the arm against old rival Alex Pereira, who had defeated him twice in kickboxing before making his own march up the UFC ranks. The two had a pair of mixed martial arts bouts that were just as compelling for their action as they were for their story. Their first fight was a familiar result, with Adesanya proving himself better in the aggregate only to get knocked out late, but that made it all the more cathartic when he returned the favor in the rematch, closing a chapter of his career and then getting back to business. With Pereira moving up to light heavyweight, Adesanya seemed set to once again rule the roost at middleweight, which still had what seemed like precious few viable challengers for his crown. One did eventually emerge. South Africa’s Du Plessis knocked out Whittaker and had a spirited post-fight confrontation with Adesanya that set their pairing up as the next obvious fight to make. Unfortunately, the best-laid plans are secondary to the UFC schedule. The promotion had a card scheduled for Sydney in September and needed Adesanya to headline. Du Plessis was still recovering from the injuries he suffered against Whittaker, which allowed Sean Strickland to somehow crash the party. Strickland figured to be easy work for Adesanya but managed to put together the performance of his life. His team had Adesanya scouted perfectly, and Strickland locked in to a point that he made the win look easy, nearly scoring a knockout early and continuing to pour on the pressure as his counterpart never turned the corner to get himself into the fight. From an Adesanya standpoint, it was an absolutely baffling showing that brings back all the questions about his mentality he seemingly answered with the Pereira win. While it might be best for Adesanya to get a rebound fight to retool, things have been teed up to get almost exactly where they should have been a year ago, as he’s in position to finally get his fight against Du Plessis—only this time as title challenger rather than champion.
Du Plessis was highly successful on the international scene, so it’s not necessarily a shock to see him wind up as one of the UFC’s top middleweights, but there’s still a sense that things shouldn’t work nearly as well as they do for “Stillknocks.” Du Plessis’ march to the championship has shown that sometimes, technical skill can be overrated when it comes to mixed martial arts. Nothing du Plessis does looks particularly smooth or pretty, but with his power, toughness and willingness to fight through exhaustion, he has been able to either catch opponents off-guard with some big offense or simply outlast them. Du Plessis’ first two wins were clearly the former, with the South African finding some knockouts seemingly out of nowhere, but it was a 2022 win over Brad Tavares that laid bare some of the dynamics that would come to define his fights. Tavares was technically sharp but unwilling to pull the trigger at points, so Du Plessis was able to consistently outpoint him with awkward offense thrown as hard as possible. That brutish approach led him to plow his way through Brunson, Whittaker and Darren Till—an ascent that was both baffling and undeniable. With Adesanya temporarily falling by the wayside after his loss to Strickland, Du Plessis wound up getting first crack at the new champion and took the narrow decision victory. He was absolutely exhausted by the end of five rounds but ate the offense coming his way and never stopped throwing power, which was enough to outweigh Strickland’s striking volume on the judges’ scorecards. That leaves us with a matchup that remains absolutely fascinating, even with Adesanya’s last performance. Given how well the Strickland camp was able to hone in on Adesanya’s preferred techniques and take the then-champion out of his game, it will be interesting to see if Du Plessis can similarly key in and find openings over the course of the fight. Du Plessis doesn’t seem to be much of a game planner, but there also appears to be a method to his particular madness, as he tends to use his brute force approach to intuit what works and what doesn’t over the course of his fights. If Du Plessis lands on a successful idea, it’s an open question as to how Adesanya will react. Some of his worst performances have come against the threat of power punchers, and Strickland landing a near-knockout in the first round seemed to take Adesanya off the rails for the rest of the fight. That suggests a long night for Adesanya—or a short night, if Du Plessis can find the former champion’s chin. At the same time, it’s hard to look at Du Plessis fighting through exhaustion in the championship rounds against Strickland and not see a huge opportunity for Adesanya to take the fight over late. That seems to make it crucial that Du Plessis gets out to a hot start for multiple reasons. Beyond the possibility of the current champion fading over time, it will also likely have the effect of making Adesanya more cautious by the time Du Plessis’ gas tank starts to run out. At first blush, this does seem set up to be a Du Plessis win given Adesanya’s recent struggles against pressure, past struggles against power punchers and the generally poor vibes around his career at the moment. However, there’s a chance this matchup winds up as the worst of both worlds for Du Plessis, with him struggling early against Adesanya’s range while trying to feel things out, then not having the energy to get things over the finish line once he has found some ideas that work. This is the type of coinflip where a call either way feels like a massive risk. The pick is Adesanya via decision.
Jump To »
Du Plessis vs. Adesanya
Erceg vs. Kara-France
Gamrot vs. Hooker
Rozenstruik vs. Tuivasa
Prates vs. Li
The Prelims
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