UFC 312 championship bouts not expected to feature any backup fighters

01/27/2025 05:00 PM

The title fights at UFC 312 featuring Dricus du Plessis vs. Sean Strickland and Zhang Weili vs. Tatiana Suarez are expected to fly without any parachute heading into Sydney.

Multiple people close to the promotion confirmed to MMA Fighting on Monday there are no plans to employ backup fighters for the championship bouts in Australia on Feb. 8.

While it has become common for the UFC to contract a backup fighter for title bouts, especially during the global pandemic that started in 2020, the promotion hasn't done that recently.

There was no backup fighter in place for the flyweight title fight between Alexandre Pantoja and Kai Asakura at UFC 310 and the same goes for the two championship bouts scheduled at UFC 311 in January.

That nearly backfired after lightweight champion Islam Makhachev lost originally scheduled opponent Arman Tsarukyan to a back injury the night before the official weigh-ins. Fortunately for the UFC, ranked lightweight Renato Moicano was already competing on the card so he ended up replacing Tsarukyan and facing Makhachev on just 24 hours' notice.

When it comes to UFC 312, neither the middleweight title fight nor the strawweight title fight have any notable names in those divisions elsewhere on the card. Many of the top contenders in both divisions are also already booked or unavailable, although middleweight Caio Borralho is planning on attending UFC 312 as he'll be cornering Bruna Brasil for her fight that night.

At strawweight, Virna Jandiroba is already booked to face Yan Xiaonan at UFC 314 in April so they are unavailable backups for this card.

Guilherme Cruz contributed to this report