UFC 312 mailbag: Where does Dricus du Plessis rank all-time at 185 and where does Zhang Weili go from here?

Dricus du Plessis and Zhang Weili remain at the top of their divisions.

This past Saturday, UFC 312 went down in Sydney, and for the second time this year, both champions retained their titles in clear-cut fashion. In the co-main event, longtime champion Weili cemented herself as the best pound-for-pound female fighter on the planet (and maybe the best strawweight of all-time) with a one-sided display against Tatiana Suarez. Then, in the main event, du Plessis silenced the doubters with a dominant decision win over rival Sean Strickland in their rematch.

So, with plenty to talk about, let’s dive into your questions.

Dricus du Plessis

“Where does DDP currently rank among UFC middleweight champions, and what do you think of his chances against Khamzat Chimaev?

If du Plessis retired tomorrow, I would feel comfortable calling him the fourth-greatest middleweight champion in UFC history. That puts him behind (in order) Anderson Silva, Israel Adesanya, and Chris Weidman, and one slot above Rich Franklin/Robert Whittaker. And I’m pretty sure that’s exactly the right place for him at the moment.

Du Plessis’s run through the UFC has been pretty damn impressive: 9 wins, 0 losses, 6 finishes, 2 Performance of the Night bonuses, 2 Fight of the Nights, and dominant wins over the No. 1, 4, and 5 contenders. That’s elite stuff right there. In fact, if you wanted to make the argument it’s a better run than Weidman, you could, but I still favor Weidman knocking out the middleweight GOAT (even if he was old by then) as the tie-breaker. But if he gets one more win, du Plessis for sure overtakes Weidman, and is suddenly hot on the heels of Adesanya.

Ultimately though, that’s the best du Plessis can reasonably hope for. The problem with being a middleweight is Anderson Silva set an impossible standard to live up to. 11 title defenses (I don’t give a shit that Travis Lutter missed weight so it wasn’t technically a title defense, that counts) is a truly unfathomable number, so much so that in his post-fight presser, du Plessis started laying the groundwork for arguing around it, saying he wants to be the GOAT and it’s not all about title defenses. Yeah, because he knows he can never possibly get to double-digit defenses. He’d have to reign atop the division for another four years, competing multiple times a year. It’s ludicrous.

That being said, Adesanya is possible to chase down if du Plessis can keep this up, and I’m excited to watch him try.

As for the Chimaev part, see below.

DDP vs. Khamzat Chimaev

“DDP vs Khamzat is the real life version of a toddler taking two action figures and smashing them together head first until one breaks, who breaks who in this fight?”

With his win over Strickland, du Plessis is now set for a collision course with Chimaev sometime later this year. It’s a fight du Plessis called for instead of the Strickland matchup, and it’s basically the fight we’ve all wanted for over a year. Finally, finally Chimaev looks like he’s going to fight for a belt.

But I don’t think it’s going to go as easy for him as many people believe.

Chimaev is a force of nature who at his peak appears to be unstoppable, except we’ve seen him get very nearly stopped a few times already. Gilbert Burns and Kamaru Usman gave “Borz” everything he could handle while also being decently undersized. Whatever your thoughts on du Plessis, he ain’t undersized.

People are finally coming around to accept that thought du Plessis is not a technical marvel, he’s huge, athletic, powerful, tough as nails, relentless, and has an exceptional understanding of fighting and how to go about it. That’s pretty much exactly the specs I’d want if I were designing a person to combat Chimaev.

Chimaev is a grappling savant, but he also papers over a lot of flaws by simply hossing people around, and I doubt that’s really possible against du Plessis. On top of that, the way Chimaev fights inevitably leads to fatigue, and du Plessis has great cardio (sure he looks tired, but he doesn’t fight tired, it’s honestly incredible, he somehow wills himself to not gassing out). In the simplest terms, Chimaev fights like a bully, and du Plessis is exceedingly well-equipped to stand up to that bully. I favor him to win come fight time.

That being said, will I be shocked if Chimaev runs through DDP and wins the belt? No. But 2025 has already been a bad year for “uncrowned champions” *cough* Umar Nurmagomedov and Tatiana Suarez *cough,* and could look even worse if Magomed Ankalaev comes up short next month. I wouldn’t be too confident in Chimaev.

Other middleweights

“Nassourdine Imavov next for DPP? I know we want to see Khamzat but can you justify he’s earned it over Imavov?”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Come on, now. In a strictly merit-based organization, Imavov would get the next crack at du Plessis, but as William Munny famously said, “Deserves got nothing to do with it.” Chimaev is getting the shot. But if I’m in Imavov’s camp, I’m campaigning hard to be the backup fighter for that bout, because when it comes to a Chimaev fight, nothing is guaranteed.

Zhang Weili

“Is Zhang Weili at her peak at the moment? Her wins against Joanna Jedrzejczyk were great but they bookend her Rose Namajunas losses. Since then, she has fought once a year so far and has looked better every time. Based on the 35 years and older stat as champion, is there better yet to come?”

I think this is undeniably the peak of Zhang’s powers right now, and it’s simply a matter of how long will it last? 35 is old for sports, ancient for fight sports, and damn near prehistoric for lower weight class fight sports. The clock is ticking on Zhang and it’s simply a matter of how long she can fend it off.

Fortunately for her (and us as fans), it looks like it could be a good long while! Zhang looked incredible against Tatiana Suarez, a fight I thought would be very difficult for her. She dominated Suarez in the wrestling and grappling and even hossed her around a bunch too. Suarez, who is a great fighter, had nothing to offer and Zhang looked like she’s not remotely close to falling off. And given how moribund the strawweight division is, even if she does fall off, I don’t know who is around to take advantage of any Zhang decline. If she sticks around at 115, I think Zhang is holding the title for at least a couple more years.

But that’s the question, isn’t it: Will Zhang stick around?

Even before Saturday Zhang was talking about a move up to 125 and afterwards, UFC CEO Dana White all but declared that was going to happen. If she sticks around at strawweight, Zhang will most likely put together an unimpeachable run that puts her right alongside the all-time greats, but it seems like the allure of two belts is too much.

Flyweight

“Am I wrong for thinking Valentina Shevchenko would soundly defeat Weili? Weili is a brute, but Valentina was a physical force even at 135lbs (I thought she beat Nunes in the rematch). She’s got Zhang covered in terms of physicality and I don’t think the skill gap is wide enough for Zhang to win 3 of 5 rounds.”

No you aren’t, but I also thought Tatiana Suarez would win, so what do I know?

In my head, Shevchenko beats Zhang in the most boring fashion because she’s much bigger and no matter what jiu-jitsu has tried to tell you, size does matter. I’m old enough to remember when Jessica Andrade in all her greatness was a real test for Shevchenko despite being a natural 115er — oh wait, that was arguably Shevchenko’s most dominant win.

Still, there is the matter of where Shevchenko is at in her career right now. While the drop off is coming for Zhang sooner or later, it’s already come for Shevchenko. Yes, she reclaimed the title from Alexa Grasso, but she’s pretty clearly diminishing in terms of physicality, speed, and athleticism. I definitely wouldn’t favor Zhang but I wouldn’t count her out either.

Other fights

“Thoughts on the Jimmy Crute vs Rodolfo Bellato draw?”

I would’ve bet money not a single person was going to ask about the rest of the main card. I guess I would have been wrong.

Uh, it was surprisingly fun? Kody Steele and Rongzhu deserved to win Fight of the Night honors but this wasn’t a terrible runner up. The issue is it just didn’t matter, outside of to the fighters themselves. Outside of the main and co-main event, every fight was either uninspired, meaningless, or both. I will promptly forget about all of them.

Oof

“Was this the worst three fights to ever open up a PPV?”

Surely not. There have been over 300 pay-per-view events. I’m sure if I dug deep I could find one. But yeah, nothing comes to mind to tops it. This is the UFC in 2025: you’re going to buy it anyway, so why should we bother?

Thanks for reading and thanks to everyone who sent in tweets (Xs?)! Do you have any burning questions about things at least somewhat related to combat sports? Then you’re in luck because you can send your tweets to me, @JedKMeshew, and I will answer my favorite ones! It doesn’t matter if they’re topical or insane, just so long as they are good. Thanks again, and see y’all next week.