Highlights! DDP Bloodies Strickland To Win Title, Calls Out Izzy To ‘Settle The Score’

Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

Dricus Du Plessis came through on his championship promise last night (Sat., Jan. 20, 2024) at UFC 297 live on ESPN+ PPV from inside Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, Ontario, …


UFC 297: Strickland v Du Plessis
Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

Dricus Du Plessis came through on his championship promise last night (Sat., Jan. 20, 2024) at UFC 297 live on ESPN+ PPV from inside Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, knocking off UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland in a wild main event showdown.

Du Plessis did a good job in the early going with a collection of head kicks and a timely takedown, but Strickland kept his cool and started to bloody the challenger up from range, Strickland did even more damage with his lead jab in the second round as DDP found it difficult to get inside for his own offense. He did score another brief takedown towards the end of the round, but the champ quickly got back to his feet.

Du Plessis was battling a badly swollen left eye entering the third round. It came from all the clean jabs that Strickland was landing. “Stillknocks” kept plodding forward, though, to engage with Strickland and started to score a little more at a time. Du Plessis came out firing in the fourth and ended up cutting Strickland’s left eye with an elbow in close. Strickland shook it off and fired back with powerful right hands, but DDP worked his way inside for another takedown.

The fifth and final round was a back-and-forth five minutes. Strickland knew he would likely need the round on the scorecards so his output increased. That only fueled the offensive antics of Du Plessis. Both men were bloodied and exchanged heavy punches for the final 30 seconds of action. It was a great finish to a high-level title fight.

In the end, it was Du Plessis who did enough on two of the judges’ scorecards to walk away with the split-decision win and the undisputed UFC middleweight title. And after his victory, Du Plessis called out former UFC champion Israel Adesanya — who was expected to sit cageside at UFC 297 but didn’t show — to finally settle their score:

“Israel Adesanya, get your ass back in the UFC so we can settle the score!” said the new UFC middleweight champion.

You can check out that post-fight interview and some main event highlights below:

For complete UFC 297 results, coverage, and highlights, click HERE.