With Colby Covington and Joaquin Buckley closing out the UFC’s action-packed 2024 schedule, the UFC will now be shut down for the holidays. Of course, fans aren’t particularly pleased with the situation.
Just realized we’re not getting any UFC for a month pic.twitter.com/pJSx0Np7j9
— Ben Davis (@BenTheBaneDavis) December 15, 2024
But don’t worry—the wait for 2025’s first event won’t be too long.
The new season starts off on January 12th with a fight night card headed by two Brazilian fighters. Amanda Ribas and Mackenzie Dern will headline the first fight night of the year which is set to take place at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. The fight card will also feature other interesting fights such as Cesar Almeida vs Abdul Razak Alhassan and Santiago Ponzinibbio vs Carlston Harris.
Shortly after, the UFC returns to the PPV platform for the first time in 2025 with not one but two title fights on the line at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood. UFC 311 will see Islam Makhachev headline the card defending his lightweight title against Arman Tsarukyan.
Both fighters have already seen the inside of an octagon together but never with stakes stacked so high. Makhchev is vying for greatness with a 4th successful title defense while Tsarukyan tries to scratch and claw his way into the hall of UFC champions.
In the co-main event, Umar Nurmagomedov gets his first shot at UFC gold taking on Merab Dvalishvili for the bantamweight title. Umar’s claim to the title shot has not been without its woes. While his win over Cory Sandhagen back in August guaranteed him a title shot, Merab didn’t particularly share that opinion.
After the UFC made the official, Merab seems to have taken matters even more personally, seeing insults to his manhood where there have been none.
Merab gets absolutely angry when Umar says that no one cares about if the fighter deserves a title shot or not, gives Kai Asakura as an example. pic.twitter.com/GyxRVZcxp9
— Home of Fight (@Home_of_Fight) December 6, 2024
That’s UFC 311 for you. But UFC 312 is going to be even crazier and not because there will be more title defenses. It’s just the guys who will be fighting for the title are generally better at talking trash and making it far more entertaining than anything at the UFC 311 presser.
How will DDP vs Strickland pan out at UFC 312?
UFC has decided to award Sean Strickland with a rematch against middleweight champion Dricus Du Plessis in Australia for UFC 312. This fight comes as a surprise since it was widely believed that after Khamzat Chimaev’s performance against Robert Whittaker at UFC 310, he would be next in line for the title.
Even DDP himself had asserted that Chimaev would be the deserving candidate, especially since he believes he had already convincingly defeated Strickland when he won the title at UFc 297.
DDP has since gone on to defend his title against one of the greatest middleweights of this generation- Israel Adesanya at UFC 305. Strickland, on the other hand, despite his violent callouts, ended up in a hop, skip, and jab fight against Paulo Costa at UFC 302.
Make no mistake, Strickland is a wild card himself and can relentlessly pressure his opponents into making mistakes that he can then capitalize on. However, the extent to which that will work on DDP is debatable at best. Du Plessis is powerful and unorthodox to the point where he makes every plan look silly.
And if their first fight and the lead-up to it were any indication, this will lead to a few spicy pressers. Strickland, as expected will cross some personal lines. DDP, on the other hand, has made it a habit of making his opponents literally cry in public.
So, this is going to be entertaining, to say the least.
