Usman vs. du Plessis on a Fight Night?

After the really disastrous "comeback fight" of Conor McGregor that strangely took place during the world cup, the UFC world has a collective lull period coming up for a while even though at first glace the cards look pretty good especially when you consider that UFC doesn't generally put a great deal of star-power behind their Fight Night events.

src

I have to give props to UFC for putting a fight of this caliber on during World Cup Final weekend and also putting it in a market that is generally considered "low return" by hosting the event in Oklahoma City - a place that is too far away from almost anywhere to attract a big audience.

Both of these guys are ex-champions that were removed from their posts in rather one-sided and some could say, embarrassingly bad defeats. Usman at one point seemed to be completely unstoppable and that nobody was going to take the belt from him until a massive underdog in Leon Edwards - who surprised everyone by KO'ing Usman in spectacular fashion and took the belt from him.

src

Everyone (including me) thought it was a fluke brought on by arrogant strategy by Usman, so they took it over the pond to England to have a rematch where Usman lost again to Edwards even though he employed a far more conservative fight strategy. Usman would win his next two fights against some quality opponents but for the most part, he is remembered for all the wrong reasons and is a bit of a non-issue. He changed weight classes and is now ranked number 9 or 10 depending on where you look but this is in a different weight division (Welterweight) than he is fighting at tomorrow. He isn't ranked in Middleweight and some would rightfully say that he is only getting a fight vs. the number 2 guy in the division because of what little remains of his legacy.

Dricus du Plessis on the other hand was a guy that had the look of someone that was going to stay on top for a while but just got absolutely worked by Khamzat Chimaev and most people thought it was a damn miracle that Dricus managed to stay conscious for the full 5 rounds.

src

Now here is why this fight is a bit of a non-issue other than potentially cementing one of these guys for a later fight. Usman hasn't fought a great deal in recent years and the last time he had a fight at middleweight was in 2023 and he lost.

At the moment the current champion of Middleweight is Sean Strickland and the only thing that could be the purpose of this Fight Night is for DDP to get a win so UFC can justify having him be next in line for the championship - which doesn't make a lot of sense when you consider that Khamzat defeated DDP with what appeared to be relative ease back in August of 2025.

But then again, when has sensibility ever meant anything to UFC? This OKC fight is something that has likely been carefully organized by the top brass at UFC to justify one of two things: If DDP wins, now they have an all white-guy fight for the top prize that will pull in a lot of views, especially if they can get Sean Strickland to start running off at the mouth.

On the other hand we have Usman, who is a fading star of sorts but if he can somehow manage a victory here - in glorious fashion, UFC will leapfrog him towards the top and while it wouldn't make any sense, they could even put HIM against Strickland some time next year or so. Even if that isn't the objective, Usman will become a big name again and put some more life into the middleweight division.

Both of these outcomes will not make sense and will irritate people like Khamzat who probably deserve the fight more as well as a bunch of dudes in the 3-10 rankings that are mostly just getting passed over by the names of someone like Usman who unfairly gets fights handed to him on a silver platter.

One thing to note about the middleweight division is how quickly UFC walked back their crazy support of Bo Nickal after he lost just a single fight back in 2025. How much sense would it make to leapfrog Usman past Nickal as well as the 10 other people in the rankings with a win over DDP? None at all really, but at this point we all just look at the UFC rankings with a sense of "none of this matters."

I would really like for this to be a good fight, but if the ranking system means anything at all, DDP should honestly destroy Usman. Let's wait and see!

The rest of the card is what you would expect from a Fight Night as only one other person on the entire card is ranked in the top 10 of any division.