The UFC 312 main and co-main events have been finalized and will feature two title fights.
The card will be headlined by a rematch between Dricus Du Plessis and Sean Strickland for the middleweight championship, while Zhang Weili will fight Tatiana Suarez for the women's strawweight championship, the UFC announced.
It's a fairly quick turnaround for Du Plessis, who defended his belt against Israel Adesanya at UFC 305 in August. Du Plessis is 22-2 in his MMA career, and 8-0 in the UFC.
He has gone to the scorers' table only twice in his UFC career, most recently against Strickland. The South African fighter beat Strickland by a split decision to win the belt at UFC 297 in Toronto in the first UFC pay-per-view event north of the border since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Strickland, the No. 1 ranked middleweight contender and No. 14 pound-for-pound fighter, most recently defeated Paulo Costa by split decision at UFC 302 in June. The 33-year-old is 29-6 in his MMA career.
Meanwhile, Weili will look to defend her strawweight belt against the No. 1 ranked Suarez in the co-main event.
Weili (9-2 UFC, 25-3 MMA) first won the title in August 2019 against Jessica Andrade. Her two UFC losses came at the hands of Rose Namajunas in 2021, once to defend the belt and the other to regain it.
She won her last four and beat Carla Esparza for the belt at UFC 281 before successfully defending the championship against Amanda Lemos and Yan Xiaonan.
Suarez is undefeated in her MMA career (11-0) and is coming off a submission win against Andrade on Aug. 5. En route to her first title shot, the 33-year-old defeated three former champions — Andrade, Esparza and Alexa Grasso.
UFC 312 will take place on Feb. 8 in Sydney, Australia at Qudos Bank Arena. You can stream the PPV live on Sportsnet+.
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