UFC 312 results: Biggest winners, loser from ‘du Plessis vs. Strickland 2’ last night

UFC 312 went down last night (Sat., Feb. 8, 2025) from inside Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney, Australia. In the main event of the evening, Dricus du Plessis defeated Sean Strickland for a second time, winning a unanimous decision after 25 minutes of action (see it again here). In the co-headlining feature, Zhang Weili defended her women’s Strawweight title by defeating Tatiana Suarez via unanimous decision.

Biggest Winner: Zhang Weili

“Magnum” gets the spot over headliner, Dricus du Plessis, because her title defense was a bit more dominant — that’s not taking anything away from “DDP’s win — against a contender who was the betting favorite coming into the fight. But Weili proved once again why she is the champion by absolutely controlling the fight en route to earning a clear-cut unanimous decision win from the person many felt would be the one to dethrone her. Aside from handing Suarez her first-ever defeat, she collected her fifth straight win and third consecutive title defense, further upping her stock amongst the best female MMA fighters on the planet.

UFC 312 PPV Results and Highlights

Runner (s) Up: Tallison Teixeira and Quillan Salkilld

It was a big night for two newcomers, as Teixeira and Salkilld kicked off their UFC careers with a bang. Salkilld sparked the event in the opening fight of the night by obliterating Anshul Jubli in just 19 seconds (see it again here), improving his record to 8-1. Not to be completely outdone. Teixeira made the most of his opportunity to fight on the main card of a pay-per-view (PPV) event in his first fight, icing Justin Tafa with a huge standing elbow, ending his night in just 35 seconds (replay). With their respective performances, Teixeira and Salkilld announced their arrival and put future opponents on notice. In the process. they each collected a cool $50,000 post-fight bonus award.

Biggest Loser: Sean Strickland

Most didn’t feel Strickland had done enough to get a rematch against du Plessis after just one win removed from his initial loss to him, but getting another title fight will be harder to come by after UFC 312. That’s because “DDP” now has two wins over “Tarzan,” and as long as he’s the champion it’s going to be hard to Strickland to get a third fight. Even if the title changes hands, Strickland — who rarely put out any offense in the rematch — will have to string together two or three impressive wins if he wants to get back to the big dance, which isn’t an easy thing to do in the highly-competitive Middleweight division.